The Bull**it Genome Project

"Misinformation and disinformation" are the new "Fame and Fortune" or "Millionaires and Billionaires" - they're different, and one is a lot more serious.

A major problem with misinformation and disinformation is that it’s misinformation to claim disinformation is a major problem.

There’s a lot of misinformation in the world.

People get things wrong all the time.That’s misinformation. Deliberate efforts to mislead, often carried out through coordinated campaigns linked to state actors, define disinformation.It’s exceedingly uncommon and makes up as small a slice of the mis/disinformation pie as stranger danger does of all child abduction.

The confusion between misinformation and disinformation is sometimes genuine, sometimes a verbal tic (see also: Medicare and Medicaid, millionaires and billionaires, fame and fortune), and sometimes a tactic to deliberately conflate the common with the rare. Misinformation is the coffee grounds used to smuggle the gram of cocaine that is disinformation into our consciousness and discourse.

Put another way, perhaps in an annoyingly debate-bro fashion: Misinformation is the motte, disinformation is the bailey.

I don’t believe there’s a conspiracy to convince us that disinformation is more of a problem than it really is. I believe the aggressive policing of misinformation and disinformation by the apparatus of legacy media and elite institutions is a natural consequence of their incentives.