“Misinformation” is Misinformation

Donald P. Goodman III

“Misinformation” sometimes feels like all we hear about. From the right, we hear “fake news”; from the left, it's “misinformation” or “disinformation”. But really, there's another name for what so many refer to as “misinformation”: it's just “being wrong”. We should stop using the other term; it makes it seem like we're talking about something really special or different, when in reality we're just referring to human fallibility or malice.

This silly word “misinformation” is getting far too much traction, and has been since 2015. Wikipedia even gave it its own article, carefully pointing out that “[m]isinformation is incorrect or misleading information”, and that “[m]isinformation and disinformation are not interchangeable terms” because “misinformation can exist with or without specific malicious intent, whereas disinformation… is deliberately deceptive and propagated.” Even the American Psychological Association, that bastion of stodgy old orthodoxy (at least by reputation), defines the terms in this way and laments that this newfangled error “has affected our ability to improve public health, address climate change, maintain a stable democracy, and more.” “And more”!

But what, ultimately, does this really mean? When the APA bewails its inability to “address climate change” due to misinformation, what are they talking about? What they mean is that people are wrong about climate change; that is, they mean that people are sharing and believing information that they believe to be incorrect. They may be right or wrong about that judgment; that is beside the point. But fundamentally, it is a judgment, a determination of what is true and what is false and applying that to what people are saying.

Now, people are wrong all the time, for all sorts of reasons. One of my children once confidently asserted to me that he was a switch-hitter, when I expressed some confusion as to why he was lining up at the plate left-handed. The fact that he then drilled a solid single to midfield doesn't mean that he was right; he never made contact left-handed again. He was wrong, in this case through overoptimism regarding the ease of switch-hitting. Another acquaintance very emphatically insisted that the Buffalo Sabres would win the Stanley Cup in 2006, when they won the President's Trophy; alas! he was wrong, in this case from insufficient prescience. Once, I myself told a mechanic that I thought my timing belt was slipping; I, too, was wrong, and my vehicle's strange behavior was due to something else entirely. None of us were “peddling misinformation”; we were just wrong. It happens to the best of us.

My work involves encountering a great deal of criminal behavior, and I once had a young man very sincerely protest that he had not, in fact, murdered his brother; he, too, was in error, in this case through deliberate falsehood. Was he “propagating disinformation”? Or was he just lying?

Being wrong, and even lying, are nothing new; they are not limited to Twitter or the modern information age. In fact, they are nearly as old as man himself. Why mysticize or exoticize these ancient issues by applying some modern new-ish nomenclature to them? What purpose is there in renaming what has been with us through all the long ages?

So if someone says something that you don't agree with, don't tell me it's “misinformation”; if someone lies about something, don't tell me it's “disinformation”. Tell me what he said that is wrong and why you know it is wrong. That will be both more honest and more helpful.

Praise be to Christ the King!