Reputation Management: key trends from 2024 and predictions for 2025
Insight
Online misinformation and disinformation
Readily available AI tools, social media and pay-to-play websites are making it easier than ever to create and circulate misinformation and disinformation. Plausible deepfakes or damaging articles containing fabricated quotes from fictitious journalists are an increasingly regular occurrence.
2025 will likely see a growth in coordinated, AI-generated campaigns, especially in disputes. Disreputable parties will seek to harness AI to damage their counterparties in the eyes of key stakeholders. This may be a means of seeking to gain leverage or may simply be vindictive.
The takedown procedures of online platforms are still patchy at best. We will be calling on them to deal properly with genuine complaints about demonstrable misinformation and disinformation. Too often, responses are automated and show a lack of engagement.
The Online Safety Act, which takes effect in 2025 and imposes a variety of duties on platforms, should make some difference. The role of OFCOM in enforcing compliance with the Act will be crucial. However, the Act contains nothing on mis- and disinformation other than a solitary section requiring the establishment of an advisory committee. Online disinformation – ranked as one of the greatest threats to stability by the World Economic Forum – will certainly not disappear next year.
Online safety and sextortion
Across the globe, concern about the exposure of young people to harmful content is mounting. For instance, in late 2024 Australia passed new legislation creating a minimum age limit of 16 for social media platforms. The bill is, of course, not without controversy.
In the UK, we are likely to see more schools increase their efforts to prevent pupils from using mobile devices and social media platforms. Whether that translates to wider action remains to be seen, although Australia-style legislation seems unlikely.
Educational institutions will also be among those doing more to tackle the growth in sextortion cases – a rise sufficiently sharp to prompt the National Crime Agency to issue a warning. It is not just young people who are at risk though. The Online Safety Act has specific provisions to tackle threats to share intimate images, while more specific legislation relating to deepfakes is also on the horizon.
Online reputation risk
In a world veering ever further towards digital and non-traditional media, senior executives and businesspeople are more acutely aware of their online presence. Clients will continue to seek protection from adverse online content and search results, fearful of the risks of debanking and other negative impacts.
Personal conduct
The scrutiny of personal conduct in a professional setting has been a feature of many of the most high-profile journalistic investigations of the last two years. Findings of serious misconduct against the former chair of the Criminal Bar Association are a further example of this, and there will be more. It will also be interesting to see how those accused (but not subject to legal process) seek to rehabilitate themselves in the public eye – whether they adopt a combative, litigious approach, or something more subtle and long term will be intriguing to see.
Social media meets politics
The formal appointment of Elon Musk to a freshly inaugurated Trump cabinet will bring the relationship between politicians and social media and media owners once more into the spotlight. Whether the ‘exodus’ of X users to BlueSky continues will also be a key trend to watch in 2025. And completing the intermingling of politics and social media will be Musk’s increasing appetite for intervention in electoral politics, as demonstrated by talk of a donation to Reform and his expressions of support for Germany’s AfD.
SLAPPs
Strategic lawsuits against public participation (SLAPPs) have fallen down the political agenda from 2022’s high watermark, when the invasion of Ukraine came shortly after and coincided with a number of libel cases brought by Russian claimants. While there is no immediate plan to legislate, the issue remains extremely topical and it may be that measures are unveiled next year. The provisions of the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023 relating to SLAPPs in cases relating to economic crime are yet to come into force, a further indication that there is uncertainty about how best to deal with this issue without impeding unfairly on access to justice.
This publication is a general summary of the law. It should not replace legal advice tailored to your specific circumstances.
© Farrer & Co LLP, February 2025
Dispute resolution trends and predictions
This insight is part of our wider report – "Dispute resolution trends & predictions" – which includes comprehensive analysis from our specialists together with valuable viewpoints from our clients.
