understanding information disorder Summary
the promise of the digital age encouraged us to believe that only positive changes would
come when we had access to any information we needed with just a click or a swipe. But this
vision has been replaced by a recognition that our information ecosystem is now
dangerously polluted and is dividing rather than connecting us.
Imposter websites, designed to look like professional outlets, are pumping out misleading
hyper-partisan content. Sock puppet accounts post outrage memes to Instagram and click
farms manipulate the trending sections of social media platforms and their recommendation
systems.
The term ‘fake news’ doesn’t begin to cover all of this. Most of this content isn’t even fake;
it’s often genuine, used out of context and weaponized by people who know that falsehoods
based on a kernel of truth are more likely to be believed and shared. And most of this can’t
be described as ‘news’. It’s good old-fashioned rumours, it’s memes, it’s manipulated videos
and hyper-targeted ‘dark ads’ and old photos re-shared as new.
The failure of the term to capture our new reality is one reason not to use the term ‘fake
news’. The other, more powerful reason, is because of the way it has been used by
politicians around the world to discredit and attack professional journalism. when journalists
use ‘fake news’ in their reporting, they are giving legitimacy to an unhelpful and increasingly
dangerous phrase.
At First Draft, we advocate using the terms that are most appropriate for the type of
content; whether that’s propaganda, lies, conspiracies, rumours, hoaxes, hyper partisan
content, falsehoods or manipulated media. We also prefer to use the terms disinformation,
misinformation or Malinformation. Collectively, we call it information disorder.
Disinformation is content that is intentionally false and designed to cause harm. It is
motivated by three distinct factors: to make money; to have political influence, either
foreign or domestic; or to cause trouble for the sake of it.
Misinformation also describes false content but the person sharing doesn’t realise that it is
false or misleading. Often a piece of disinformation is picked up by someone who doesn’t
realise it’s false, and shares it with their networks, believing that they are helping.
Malinformation. The term describes genuine information that is shared with an intent to
cause harm. An example of this is when Russian agents hacked into emails from the
Democratic National Committee and the Hillary Clinton campaign and leaked certain details
to the public to damage reputations.
We are increasingly seeing the weaponization of context, the use of genuine content, but
content that is warped and reframed. anything with a kernel of truth is far more successful
in terms of persuading and engaging people. This evolution is also partly a response to the
search and social companies becoming far tougher on attempts to manipulate their mass
audiences. much of the content we’re now seeing would fall into this Malinformation
category — genuine information used to cause harm.
the promise of the digital age encouraged us to believe that only positive changes would
come when we had access to any information we needed with just a click or a swipe. But this
vision has been replaced by a recognition that our information ecosystem is now
dangerously polluted and is dividing rather than connecting us.
Imposter websites, designed to look like professional outlets, are pumping out misleading
hyper-partisan content. Sock puppet accounts post outrage memes to Instagram and click
farms manipulate the trending sections of social media platforms and their recommendation
systems.
The term ‘fake news’ doesn’t begin to cover all of this. Most of this content isn’t even fake;
it’s often genuine, used out of context and weaponized by people who know that falsehoods
based on a kernel of truth are more likely to be believed and shared. And most of this can’t
be described as ‘news’. It’s good old-fashioned rumours, it’s memes, it’s manipulated videos
and hyper-targeted ‘dark ads’ and old photos re-shared as new.
The failure of the term to capture our new reality is one reason not to use the term ‘fake
news’. The other, more powerful reason, is because of the way it has been used by
politicians around the world to discredit and attack professional journalism. when journalists
use ‘fake news’ in their reporting, they are giving legitimacy to an unhelpful and increasingly
dangerous phrase.
At First Draft, we advocate using the terms that are most appropriate for the type of
content; whether that’s propaganda, lies, conspiracies, rumours, hoaxes, hyper partisan
content, falsehoods or manipulated media. We also prefer to use the terms disinformation,
misinformation or Malinformation. Collectively, we call it information disorder.
Disinformation is content that is intentionally false and designed to cause harm. It is
motivated by three distinct factors: to make money; to have political influence, either
foreign or domestic; or to cause trouble for the sake of it.
Misinformation also describes false content but the person sharing doesn’t realise that it is
false or misleading. Often a piece of disinformation is picked up by someone who doesn’t
realise it’s false, and shares it with their networks, believing that they are helping.
Malinformation. The term describes genuine information that is shared with an intent to
cause harm. An example of this is when Russian agents hacked into emails from the
Democratic National Committee and the Hillary Clinton campaign and leaked certain details
to the public to damage reputations.
We are increasingly seeing the weaponization of context, the use of genuine content, but
content that is warped and reframed. anything with a kernel of truth is far more successful
in terms of persuading and engaging people. This evolution is also partly a response to the
search and social companies becoming far tougher on attempts to manipulate their mass
audiences. much of the content we’re now seeing would fall into this Malinformation
category — genuine information used to cause harm.
