According to Ancient Sumerian legend, King Enmerkar of Uruk was caught in a bitter slanging match with his deadly foe the Lord of Aratta, but the insults had become so elaborate that the King’s messenger struggled to remember them.

So Enmerkar did something revolutionary, at least for 2750BC. He inscribed his latest vicious barb on a clay tablet – and invented writing.

Right from the off, writing was a weapon. The first information technology was born from the desire to throw shade more effectively than human memory allowed.

In a new book out now, British academic, tech veteran and Guardian columnist Naomi Alderman presents this and other examples to form a sobering thesis: we are living through humanity’s third great “Information Crisis.”

Don’t Burn Anyone at the Stake Today argues that misinformation and online pile-ons form a pattern repeated throughout history whenever comms takes a great leap forward.

Alderman calls out three big shifts: the invention of writing 5,000 years ago, the printing press 600 years ago, and the internet. Each leap flooded us with unprecedented volumes of knowledge and opinions. But alongside enlightenment came something darker: lies, polarisation, and violence that tore communities apart.

The printing press, so often celebrated as a civilising force, sparked the “witch-hunt frenzy”. Three hundred years of legally sanctioned violence that resulted in approximately 90,000 trials and 45,000 executions, most of whom were women and girls.

The catalyst was information technology. In 1487, two Dominican inquisitors published the Malleus Maleficarum (The Hammer of Witches), a detailed handbook for identifying, interrogating, and prosecuting alleged witches. Without the printing press, this text would have remained an obscure manuscript. Instead it became a bestseller across Europe.

Sensationalist pamphlets featuring lurid illustrations of topless women burning at stakes became the era’s clickbait. “True crime” stories about witches were hugely profitable, so publishers churned them out, often omitting acquittals and distorting details to boost the scandal. It’s probably no coincidence that 15th century men were far more likely to be able to read, write and run a printing press than women.

Alderman argues that when new communication technologies emerge, previously marginal voices reach mass audiences. People get simultaneously more knowledgeable and more fearful, more curious and more angry.

Malicious actors, whether 15th-century inquisitors or 21st-century conspiracy theorists, exploit the confusion to spread fear. Modern “witch-hunting manuals” take the form of viral threads demonising individuals, politicians, leaders and brands.

There are clear lessons from both Mesopotamia and 15th century Europe for today’s corporations navigating crises. The written word was created to satisfy our desire to communicate hostility. New media has always been indifferent to accuracy.

So I would argue that the most effective response isn’t to fight to control the technology, but to accept and respond to what human impulses power it. To respond quickly before speculation hardens into “truth”, communicate with transparency rather than corporate-speak, and use genuine dialogue rather than one-way announcements. You can’t stop people talking, so engage with them.

Like the Reformation-era printers who discovered that nuanced pamphlets couldn’t compete with sensationalist broadsheets, companies must learn that boring facts will lose to dramatic narratives unless those facts are presented with exceptional clarity, humanity and speed.

The question isn’t whether your crisis will be discussed online. It will be.

The question is whether you’ll participate in that conversation, or be defined by others in your absence.

If you’d like to speak to our crisis team, get in touch crisis@grayling.com.