UNESCO — the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization — released a 128-page publication titled Journalism, Fake News & Disinformation in 2018. It was put together as a handbook for journalism education and training. The Foreword provided a sound summary of the dangers of fake news, juxtaposed against the importance of fact-based journalism. The publication’s authors differentiate between the terms ‘misinformation’ and ‘disinformation,’ wanting to make clear they are not the same, and that the delta between them comes down to intent. Misinformation is defined as misleading information, either created or disseminated without manipulative or malicious intent. The less-used term disinformation is defined as deliberate, often orchestrated attempts to “confuse or manipulate people through delivering dishonest information to them.’’ The UNESCO publication expounds that while both are problems for society, disinformation is more dangerous because it is intending to harm, and is “frequently organized, well resourced, and reinforced by automated technology.”
UNESCO is an organization that serves many nations and is therefore not subject to publishing from a U.S. perspective. Nevertheless, the authors of this study make a powerful case that fake news is hugely disruptive to, and threatens the cohesion of, societies democratic or otherwise. It is disinformation — malicious intent — that is particularly concerning, however. “The purveyors of disinformation prey on the vulnerability or partisan potential of recipients whom they hope to enlist as amplifiers and multipliers,” the publication reads. “In this way, they seek to animate us into becoming conduits of their messages by exploiting our propensities to share information.”
The report also dissects the economics of fake news, warning that because it is most often free, those that cannot afford to pay for “quality journalism” are especially vulnerable. The same can be said for a free online distribution strategy. “The spread of disinformation and misinformation is made possible largely through social networks and social messaging,” the report notes. The authors question the extent of regulation and self-regulation of social media companies. “In their character as intermediary platforms, rather than content creators, these businesses have, to date, generally been subject to only light-touch regulation (except in the area of copyright),” the report reads. Acknowledging growing pressure on social media platforms, and their need to maintain free expression that could be inhibited by over-regulation, UNESCO states that there are “increased – although patchy – steps in the frame of self-regulation.”
What social media platforms can and should do to address misinformation and disinformation has become an area of great public interest. In 2018, NYU, Stanford, Microsoft, and the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), published a paper titled ‘Trends in the Diffusion of Misinformation on Social Media.’ The researchers looked at content on 570 fake news websites, and 10,240 fake news stories on Facebook and Twitter between 2015 and 2018. The results of the study suggest that the efforts Facebook went to in the aftermath of the 2016 election may have had a meaningful impact. In other words, social media companies combating misinformation and disinformation on their platforms can be effective. Extrapolating from the takeaway from the UNESCO report, such steps are necessary in order to maintain well-functioning societies. But should they be mandatory?
What is clear is it not just social media platforms that need to be held accountable. A report published on the U.S. Department of State website, titled ‘Weapons of Mass Distraction: Foreign State-Sponsored Disinformation In the Digital Age, warns that “the use of modern-day disinformation does not start and end with Russia.” That report, authored by Christina Nemr, who worked at the Bureau of Counterterrorism at the U.S. Department of State, and William Gangware at McKinsey & Company, raises alarm bells at the increased ability of nation-states to spread disinformation. “The proliferation of social media platforms has democratized the dissemination and consumption of information, thereby eroding traditional media hierarchies and undercutting claims of authority,” their report reads. “In this environment, states and individuals can easily spread disinformation at lightning speed and with serious impact. A growing number of states, in the pursuit of geopolitical ends, are leveraging digital tools and social media networks to spread narratives, distortions, and falsehoods to shape public perceptions and undermine trust in the truth.”
As such, it needs to be asked if confusing the term disinformation with misinformation is misguided, and instead, we should be thinking of disinformation as conflated with propaganda. It is both of those terms that rely on malicious intent in using false information to manipulate and persuade wider audiences.