“Misinformation” appears to be a term used by people who don’t want to take on the burden of proof when accusing someone of lying.
'these guys are just stupid' as they engage in overt deception and manipulation to even make such an accusation.
- accusing someone of lying has no restraining impact on the person or the lie, and indeed where it might have a magnifying effect
or
- the lie is being shared by someone who has been lied to and does not know it; they aren't a liar but they are misinformers.
Calling the "Covid hasn't even been isolated" misinformation a lie, for example, requires knowing that the teller is aware they are lying. They could simply be credulous.
Should an accusation alone have that effect?
The point is, many lies are a particular kind of bad faith. You can point out to the guy who, say, believes Antoine Béchamp is the last word in medicine, that he is misrepresenting Béchamp in the past, let alone misrepresenting science in the present, and that guy will argue that it is the very predictable pattern of your fact-based attempt to disprove him that is evidence of your perfidy.
When you know that person is making that argument knowing it to be false, there is no point in accusing them.
The only thing you can do is tackle the "alternative facts" as misinformation rather than as an attempt to deceive.
Because those who argue in bad faith claim injury in bad faith too. "Misinformation" is a more dispassionate approach.
Or any of the various other QAnon work.
Especially after Epstein. Why would they bother with the pizza business? I guess to add some theory to the conspiracy?
Misinformation exists, and it is a problem. At this point we've seen some evidence that state actors put some of it out there during the 2016/2020 elections, and it can be spread organically.
That said, it's not nearly as widespread or problematic as it's made to be by much of popular media.
The Earth is a flat disc.
Is this misinformation, wrongthink, or both?
To be sure it's a vague term applied quite continuously online but simply deflecting it as actually meaning "wrongthink" is disingenuous. There's a lot of misinformation being spread specifically about objective measurable facts. It is simultaneously true that a lot of opinions are being mislabeled as misinformation.
The liar can produce 10 lies and demands you disprove them or they are somehow true. The burden of the liar proving their reasoning is missing.
The goal is that their opinion and your fact be treated with equal weight or the opinion has greater weight simply because they can produce more "opinions" more often than you can facts.
This is also referred to as Gish Gallop and relies heavily on the bullshit asymmetry principle.
Interesting that there seems to be a lot of overlap between creationists and antivaxers. Creationists seem to buy into a sort of conspiratorial view of science where they claim that their "creation scientists" are purposely ignored by mainstream science which is in the grip of some kind of delusion so that they can't comprehend that creationism is the way or are in fact actively trying to subvert the idea that creationism is actually true. Extrapolate to vaccines and they easily believe that there's some kind of alternative science that hasn't been corrupted, but isn't widely known. Similar overlaps for denying climate change.
> Is this misinformation, wrongthink, or both?
Neither. It is an assertion based on a frame of reference. The mapping systems used on my phone don't often describe geographic topography and so assert a flatness to the surface of this planet. Likewise this planet viewed from its moon would have the visual appearance of a disk. Is "The Earth is a flat disc" a helpful explanation for operating in the world? Not if you are a rocket scientist but it isn't a terrible model if you live an entire life within the vicinity of your family farm.
“All models are wrong, but some are useful”. George E. P. Box
https://www.lacan.upc.edu/admoreWeb/2018/05/all-models-are-w...
> Is this misinformation, wrongthink, or both?
You missed the fourth option: it's neither. No-one would call it misinformation or wrongthink; rather it's false, or a lie if you're feeling judgemental. I think the person you replied to has made a good point.
Most people will not have the experience to discern things like p-hacking and massaged numbers. Having experts call these things out as misinformation seems quite useful to me.
Maybe. I've not heard people calling "misinformation" in cases like that though.
It has no meaning at all. Since it basically has no meaning it does make it quite a good word in a propaganda context. We can make this word mean whatever we want.
It is a shame we don't use the concept of noise or a noisy channel in a wider context.
you just got fact checked