Ask HN: What Is Disinformation?
Honest question, I’m puzzled at the of disinformation calling in the recent years, and not all of it is disinformation or lasting disinformation, meaning, sometimes what is called disinformation today could be a known fact in 3 months time from now.
4 comments
various propaganda shops push their own definitions; which often include subtleties like "mal-information". True things that are used to nudge opinions as the speaker wishes, as opposed to how the propaganda shop would rather you think of the subject.
I think a decent general definition, for real people, might be "disinformation something someone else did not want you to know." It might be true or not, but they were counting on you following some different narrative.
everything is propaganda, to some degree: no one went to the effort of telling you $X without they thunk they was gonna benefit from you hearing it. You have to take that into account with everything. "Advertising" is a more acceptable name, perhaps; but the bare facts of it haven't changed since someone was attempting to talk someone else into supplying the livestock for a BBQ party "for the greater glory of $gods"
I think a decent general definition, for real people, might be "disinformation something someone else did not want you to know." It might be true or not, but they were counting on you following some different narrative.
everything is propaganda, to some degree: no one went to the effort of telling you $X without they thunk they was gonna benefit from you hearing it. You have to take that into account with everything. "Advertising" is a more acceptable name, perhaps; but the bare facts of it haven't changed since someone was attempting to talk someone else into supplying the livestock for a BBQ party "for the greater glory of $gods"
Sorry I missed this and your invitatio to chime in on definitions.
The key difference in all of this is intent - much like it is in many areas of law.
Misinformation becomes disinformation when done with ill intent.
Also, one can have disinformation by omission, such as leaving out a critical safety step in a recipe.
There are some good basic definitions in here [0]
[0] https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/STUD/2021/6536...
The key difference in all of this is intent - much like it is in many areas of law.
Misinformation becomes disinformation when done with ill intent.
Also, one can have disinformation by omission, such as leaving out a critical safety step in a recipe.
There are some good basic definitions in here [0]
[0] https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/STUD/2021/6536...
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