Helpful?
> Here, disinformation refers to false, inaccurate or misleading information designed, presented and promoted intentionally to cause public harm or make a profit.
Is campaigning on lies a form of profit? You might win. These hypocrites really dare to present this as novel? Lying in politics?
What’s really the practical difference between this ostensibly oh-so clearly demarcated “disinformation” and less outright other-information? The difference is having a discourse fog which makes it practically impossible to conclude anything without sinking into a quagmire of rhetoric.
Here’s a “Beijing” statement, hypothetical:
> We the people of China
Ah! the eggheads exclaim. Propaganda! Clear disinformation since China is an authoritarian state (sorry, regime)—it can’t be a state “of the people”.
Here’s a “Washington” statement:
> The President does not suffer symptoms of senility
What is this? This is twenty different articles and op-eds back and forth on this topic:
- Well he went to the doctor 15 years ago and he said he was fine
- My good friend Joe Biden would never become demented—he would rather [redacted]
- I respect the President but it’s time for some young blood in leadership
- As a close aide to the President, blah blah
- He might not seem as sharp as 12 years ago but [diversion tactic]
Isn’t it amazing—you cannot peddle outright disinformation if you are sufficiently powerful, almost by definition; there is always some clown who will bat for you. And the result? A discourse fog. No one is a liar. No one is peddling “disinformation for profit.”
In conclusion: what we do are varying levels of information. But what these foreign forces do (because they are not here to defend themselves, and anyone who defends them (or just has a nuanced point of view) is just <regime>-puppet anyway) is disinformation because they clearly are X while they claim to be Y.