People talk and complain about disinformation and misinformation constantly. Disinformation and misinformation are said to be horrible, and in some people’s views, they need to be banned. But to be honest, I’m not really sure what these terms mean. Is “disinformation” a statement that is false or does it have to be knowingly false? Does it need to have an illicit purpose or does that matter? And what about “misinformation”? Is it something that is not true but without an illicit purpose or is it something else? And how is it different from “disinformation”?
I don’t know, and I suspect that I’m not alone in my confusion. I also suspect that disinformation and misinformation are used more as weapons than as descriptions. The nice thing about calling something disinformation or misinformation is that you don’t have to explain why it’s false or wrong. You just get to call it false and tell people to ignore it and sometimes even try to shut people up because they’re saying it.
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