And this is not just because it would be nice to counter the vast amounts of online lies and propaganda with truthful and respectful debate, something the TED audience always prefers.

But because, a series of speakers said, misinformation is having alarming real world consequences - from influencing elections to causing deaths.

Claire Wardle is the founder of First Draft News, a charity that fights misinformation. She recently set up the Coalition to Integrate Values into the Information Commons (Civic).

It aims to build new infrastructure for quality information, something she described as a "Wikipedia of trust".

At TED, she asked "citizens of the internet" - whether everyday users, journalists, educators or software developers - to take part in the project, which will build a depository of the rumours, memes and propaganda circulating online.

It will attempt to throw light on where they came from and suggest ways to filter such content in future.

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