Misinformation, disinformation, and propaganda differ mainly by intent to deceive

Evidence

At this point, it is useful to conceptually distinguish ‘misinformation’ from ‘disinformation’ and ‘propaganda’. I define misinformation as information that is simply false or incorrect, for whatever reason. People make honest mistakes. Journalists make innocent errors. Disinformation, however, is misinformation coupled with some psychological intention to deceive or harm others. When disinformation is deployed in the service of a political agenda, state-sanctioned or otherwise, we call it propaganda. What matters here is the explicit involvement of malicious intent, often with the goal of manipulating people – for example, to vote a certain way. In other words, disinformation and propaganda are the more dangerous subsets of what everyone generally refers to as ‘fake news’. Unfortunately, intent is difficult to prove, at least in a legal sense, so throughout this book I will mostly use the broader term ‘misinformation’ so as to remain agnostic about intent unless I specifically refer to well-documented disinformation and propaganda campaigns. — Sander van der Linden, Foolproof, 53

Categorization

• DEFINE: Clean working taxonomy distinguishing the three core terms on intent, with the author’s stated agnosticism about intent as method.
• XREF: connects to: Outright fabrication represents only a small fraction of misleading media — Sander van der Linden, Foolproof: Why Misinformation Infects…, 50; Fake news is deliberately false and evolved from clickbait to political manipulation — Lee McIntyre, Post-Truth, 213; Deliberate misinformation weaponized for profit or power can outcompete true news — Lee McIntyre, Post-Truth, 218 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Misinformation becomes disinformation only when intent to deceive is added #corroborates (0.95) — Sander van der Linden, Foolproof, 53
• Fake news is deliberately false and evolved from clickbait to political manipulation #expands (0.85) — Lee McIntyre, Post-Truth, 213
• Deliberate misinformation weaponized for profit or power can outcompete true news #expands (0.75) — Lee McIntyre, Post-Truth, 218