The world is awash in disinformation. Untruths and half-truths abound, seemingly about everything, from phantom voter fraud, to lies about the coronavirus, to tall-tales of pedophilic cabals bestriding the globe. And while this "information disorder" has often been thought of as primarily effecting politics, the malady runs deeper.

We are witnessing the emergence of a growing threat to businesses of all kinds: the proliferation of viral false information and believable synthetic media (or, deepfakes) targeting the private sector. These new hazards require innovative business and legal responses, what I call disinformation and deepfakes risk management (DDRM).

Disinformation in this context means the spreading of outright falsehoods, personal data, or decontextualized information in a farrago of fact and myth to mislead others.