Authors: Nyra Wise, Nathalie Gullo, and Renee D. Jean, MA
March 12, 2025
Misinformation and Disinformation: What are the differences?
Misinformation is inaccurate or misleading information that is not spread with the intent to deceive.
On the other hand, disinformation is false information that is deliberately spread to deceive people and obscure the truth.
Understanding the differences in these types of false information is paramount to knowing what kind of information is safe to share and building an essential network of trusted sources.
![[Image credit: Skorzewiak/Shutterstock]](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/e28a6b_c98f7f07b021407dade8cf8953850565~mv2.png/v1/fill/w_980,h_653,al_c,q_90,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01,enc_avif,quality_auto/e28a6b_c98f7f07b021407dade8cf8953850565~mv2.png)
What are the harms of mis- and disinformation?
The impacts of misinformation and disinformation campaigns throughout history and across the globe are varied–ranging from silly misunderstandings to targeted violence against marginalized individuals and communities.
Disinformation and misinformation has promoted sinophobia, xenophobia, transphobia, public approval of limitations on body autonomy, military coups, and disguises corruption and exploitation. The mass spread and acceptance of misinformation, especially violent and targeted campaigns, helps facilitate normalization of dangerous rhetoric and incites interpersonal and systemic violence.
What are the different types of misinformation and disinformation?
There are various types of misinformation and disinformation:
Fabricated Content: content that is completely false.
Manipulated Content: real content that has been edited or distorted in some way.
Imposter Content: content that is impersonating real, often trusted sources.
Misleading Content: content that presents misleading information.
Ex. Fake images from Hurricane Sandy
(Stolen) Satire and Parody: humorous but false stories passed off as genuine. There is no intention to harm, but readers may be fooled.
Ex. This article by The Onion
False Connections: when headlines, photos and captions do not align with the written content.
Sponsored Content: when advertising is disguised as regular content, it is most relevant when the sponsorship is not shared with viewers.
False Context: when accurate content is paired with inaccurate contextual information.
Propaganda: information of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote or publicize a particular political cause or point of view.
What role does social media play?
Social media has a complex relationship to the spread of misinformation and disinformation. It can help a wide audience identify possible misinformation and point to sources people can use to confirm the factual information. For example, it can connect verifiable professionals that have a greater understanding of complex issues to other users that do not. It can also connect people with users that have the time and energy to investigate trending claims and highlight the potential fallacy of those claims.
At the same time, social media can contribute to the mass spread of and acceptance of misinformation. Social media can amplify the reach of mis- and disinformation because people have the ability to share almost anything instantaneously. The danger of this is that information on social media is intended to be bite-sized so that one can have a look and scroll on past, failing to leave room for the complexity of most news pieces or social discourse. While shorter content on social media could helpfully summarize information, many times it serves to simplify (and thus conceal important aspects of) information. For example, a post referencing a research study may accurately discuss the aims of the research, but may fail to properly disclose the correlation between the factors studied, leading to fundamental misunderstandings and potentially undue panic.
There are many concrete ways that social media is used to sow dangerous confusion and facilitate the spread of both misinformation and disinformation:
Through a sockpuppet: misleading uses of online identities by an independent third party to praise, defend or support a person or organization; to manipulate public opinion; or to circumvent restrictions, suspension or an outright ban from a website.
By way of sealioning: a type of trolling or harassment where people are pursued with persistent requests for evidence or repeated questions.
By astroturfing: content that masks the sponsors of a message (e.g. political, religious, advertising or PR organizations) to make it appear as though it comes from grassroots participants.
By catfishing: a form of fraud where a person creates a sockpuppet or fake identity to target a particular victim on social media.
What are some common tactics of misinformation?
Common tactics to spread misinformation are:
Impersonation: impersonating a real person or organization to make their claims sound more credible.
Emotion: using headlines and making claims with language meant to trigger the audience’s emotions, whether they be positive or negative.
Polarization: purposefully play on political divisions and divide the audience based on their political affiliation.
Discredit: opposed to directly addressing a claim, this strategy focuses on discrediting the individual or organization that is sharing the information.
Conspiracy: content that claims an organization or a government is secretly plotting against the public or causing some issue.
Trolling: relies on evoking emotional reactions from the audience by using “bait”.
What are some common tactics of disinformation?
The tactics most commonly utilized to spread disinformation are:
Impersonation: impersonating a real person or organization to make their claims sound more credible.
Create Deepfakes and Synthetic Media: photos, videos and audio clips that have been digitally manipulated or completely fabricated.
Conspiracy: content that claims an organization or a government is secretly plotting against the public or causing some issue.
Astroturfing and Flooding the Information Environment: posting an overwhelming amount of content with the same or similar messaging from several inauthentic accounts.
Abuse Alternative Platforms: sharing information on alternative platforms that may have fewer user protections to legitimize a disinformation narrative.
Exploit Information Gaps: exploiting information gaps, when there is insufficient credible information to satisfy a search inquiry, by generating their own content and encouraging others on the internet to look it up.
Manipulate Unsuspecting Actors: targeting of prominent individuals and organizations to help amplify disinformation narratives.
Spread Targeted Content: producing tailored influence content likely to resonate with a specific audience based on their worldview and interests, making them more likely to spread disinformation narratives.
Micro-targeting: delivers personalized messages to a specific audience.
Geofencing: uses geography to map out a virtual boundary within which you then concentrate a disinformation campaign.
![[Image source: Lemiere]](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/e28a6b_f6353983a2c646b5a4c050929a28dbdd~mv2.png/v1/fill/w_900,h_506,al_c,q_90,enc_avif,quality_auto/e28a6b_f6353983a2c646b5a4c050929a28dbdd~mv2.png)
What can you do?
Seek out credible sources! Credible sources are sources that have information you know you can trust. Credible sources should have a clear list of citations that help readers track where they are getting their information and evaluate the trustworthiness of any claims made in the work.
Credible sources, especially sources sharing news, should have little to no political bias. This is important because sources without political bias often focus on including information regardless of how well it might reflect on a given political group.
With increased censorship around national and international human rights violations, social media has been and can continue to be a vital tool for disseminating information and amplifying the voices of grassroots communities. We should be critical of information circulating because of the powerful potential that social media has. By approaching content with discernment, we can be more accurate advocates for people in our communities and beyond.
It’s clear that not every source you may come across is trustworthy, but that doesn’t mean you have to be afraid or resistant to what you’re seeing. Using extra caution when engaging with information being spread on social media and by the news can look like:
Engage with curiosity, not fear or anger: while it can be hard to identify mis- and disinformation, it’s best to take the information you see, especially information trending on the internet with a grain of salt until you have time to thoughtfully investigate
Understanding the tactics used to spread misinformation: seeking out guides like this one, often developed by libraries or universities, can help keep you up to date on tactics to be on the lookout for.
Measure the potential risk of sharing the information and pause: be before resharing things like important health or national legislative news and make sure to take time to verify your sources to help mitigate panic and fear.
Triple-checking your sources: making sure to check whether the sources referenced on social media are credible is an important step to identifying mis- or disinformation.
Consulting with the people you know in real life: talking to trusted people, such as a trusted healthcare professional or your local librarian, who have also encountered a trending topic might help you feel less alone and verify the accuracy of the information
As an organization that is committed to educating through facts and advocating for people using our research findings, HRRC finds it especially consequential for our readers to be well-versed in media literacy and critical of the information they take in on social media and beyond.
Glossary
Deceive: To make someone believe something that isn’t true.
Disinformation: False information that is deliberately spread to deceive people and obscure the truth.
Marginalized: To mistreat or oppress due to someone’s identity.
Misinformation: Inaccurate or misleading information not spread with the intent to deceive.
Obscure: To prevent someone from seeing or understanding something clearly.
Paramount: More important than other things.
Propaganda: Information, of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote or publicize a particular political cause or point of view.
Sources
“Types of Misinformation - Evaluating Information - Research Guides and Class Pages at Dominican University.” n.d. Home - Rebecca Crown Library - Research Guides and Class Pages at Dominican University. https://research.dom.edu/evaluatinginfo/Misinformation.
“Factsheet 4: Types of Misinformation and Disinformation.” n.d. The UN Refugee Agency. https://www.unhcr.org/innovation/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Factsheet-4.pdf
“Misinformation Tactics - Fake News & Digital Media Literacy - LibGuides at Central Methodist University.” n.d. Home - Welcome to Smiley Memorial Library - LibGuides at Central Methodist University. https://centralmethodist.libguides.com/fake_news/misinformation_tactics.
“Tactics of Disinformation. ” n.d. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. https://www.cisa.gov/sites/default/files/publications/tactics-of-disinformation_508.pdf.
“What Is a Disinformation Campaign? | CrowdStrike.” n.d. CrowdStrike: We Stop Breaches with AI-Native Cybersecurity. https://www.crowdstrike.com/en-us/cybersecurity-101/social-engineering/disinformation-campaign/.
Finn, Scott. 2012. “Telling Fake Sandy Photos From Real Ones | WUSF.” WUSF . WUSF. October 31, 2012. https://www.wusf.org/culture/2012-10-31/telling-fake-sandy-photos-from-real-ones.
“What Is ‘Fake News’? - Library Guide for International Students and Scholars - Research Guides at University of Michigan Library.” n.d. Home - Research Guides at University of Michigan Library. https://guides.lib.umich.edu/c.php?g=283392&p=9861694.
“What Is a Credible or Reliable Source? - QuickAnswers.” n.d. QuickAnswers - QuickAnswers. https://uagconline.libanswers.com/faq/241353#:~:text=A%20credible%20or%20reliable%20source%20is%20one%20where%20you%20can,credible.