Talk:Misinformation

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Suggestion

This article would be more humorous if the information were incorrect in it. 66.253.36.140 05:59, 23 June 2006 (UTC)
As of today, the article is actually filled with inaccurate information! The irony is unreal :) --Flycatchr 20:43, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

In relation to the Internet?

This article could be enhanced by talking about misinformation in relation to the Internet and Internet safety. Web 2.0 has made misinformation more prevalent than ever before. I suggest discussing Internet misinformation in the article, as well as providing a link to this page, which gives a practical list of protective measures that would be useful to readers. Mscwriter (talk) 13:35, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Wiki is ok for basic info. But it is a classic site for misinformation about other things.

For example, you'll never know the real truth about people like Gandhi, Dalai Lama, Mother Teresa, etc. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.11.154.69 (talk) 19:07, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

A discussion of urban legends would add to the topic as a example of internet related types of misinformation. Thaddeus Ballantine (talk) 06:34, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

Who is Makkai?

"Makkai proposes the distinction between misinformation and disinformation to be a defining characteristic of idioms in the English language."

I'm not a linguist nor the most well read man, but, having never heard of this person, would it not be wise to at the very least say his fist name? And, particularly because he has no wikipedia article to link to, say his significance to the study of language? For the time being I will add his name "Adam" from the citation, but this all needs to be checked out ProfNax (talk) 08:30, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

"Ignorance" -- bad section

"Although some may say ignorance can be viewed as a positive, when it comes to producing, judging, and spreading information, it may not be as good. Readers and viewers who spread information without knowing the facts, allows misinformation to continue. Some may not know the facts and choose to continue to not understand. To stop the spread of misinformation, readers must take the time to find more information and evaluate its truth in comparison to other ideas."

Rubbish. "Some say" has no authority whatsoever. "Some" could include fools, liars, and overt propagandists. I am reminded of the placards that George Orwell has appearing in his novel 1984 -- "War is Peace", "Freedom is Slavery", and "Ignorance is Strength".

I suggest something like this instead:

Any State has official secrets even in peacetime and has even more in wartime. No State wants the weaknesses of its weapons known, troop movements or ship sailings to be announced to an enemy, or shortages of essential components of its military machine available to a chatty public because enemy agents might get such information and use it to advantage. Even soldiers are told only what they need be told at the time so that if they should be captured they will not divulge valuable information to an enemy even under torture. Governments typically seek to discourage curiosity about details that could harm a nation if they got into the wrong hands. To be sure, the State cannot deny even such unpleasant knowledge as casualty lists or military setbacks and cannot avoid acknowledging historical fact. The State may announce the truth when the truth can no longer harm military objectives -- and must do so in a timely manner so that it can maintain its credibility.

(Here I suggest adding an image of a WWII poster warning people to not discuss ship sailings, troop movements, volume of arms production, etc.)

Some secrets are kept so that they can keep soldiers from mistreating innocent people. At the extreme, the Allies kept the Holocaust hidden from public knowledge so that their soldiers would not use knowledge of Nazi atrocities as an excuse for mistreating Germans (captured soldiers and civilians after occupation) who came under Allied command.

.....

Adapt this at will, if you wish, ideally adding sources. I have read material to this effect but do not remember the sources. Pbrower2a (talk) 03:44, 21 November 2014 (UTC)

Lead Section

I erased most of the lead section as it focused too much on the difference between misinformation and disinformation, and the writing style was essay-like.--Flycatchr 20:43, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

Deliberate?

Previous version of the article states that misinformation is a deliberate act. Various paper show that it can be both intentional or unintentional.--Flycatchr 20:43, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

Misinformation is any incorrect, misleading, or unverifiable information. Disinformation is deliberate misinformation. Most often when we talk about "fake news", we are talking about disinformation but both are problematic. Social media has been criticized for being full of misinformation mostly because of disinformation, but major news outlets also spread "facts" that end up being false, and biased news and opinion articles are often misleading and lack sources.2604:F840:8001:8550:5CDF:7A88:6952:91C7 (talk) 04:06, 10 March 2021 (UTC)JustPassingBy

Suggested image: Careless talk kills American soldiers

I suggest this as an example of the idea that reckless leaks of knowledge potentially valuable to an enemy can result in unconscionable tragedy:

http://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc613/small/

The original was made by the US War Department during WWII and should be in the public domain.

Another -- basically, "loose lips sink ships"

http://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc449/small/

Office of War Information, so public domain.

And who is ultimately listening?

http://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc148/m1/1/med_res/

The demonic trio of WWII -- Mussolini, Tojo, and Hitler

Also Office of War Information -- public domain.Pbrower2a (talk) 22:46, 21 November 2014 (UTC)

Please remember writing with a wp:Global perspective.Tomastvivlaren (talk) 00:43, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

Is this article only about unintentional misinformation or does it include disinformation?

The Wikimedia illustration gives the impression that in this article, misinformation is defined as unintentional. That is however contradicted by the sources. The article intro and the sources show that disinformation (which always is intentinal) is as subset of misinformation. The rest of the article is vague on what definition is used.

To clarify, the article may either be renamed "unintentional misinformation", or have separate sections on intentional and unintentional misinformation.

"I don't get why "Hoax" is a separate entity in the Wikimedia illustration. THe illustration could be improved and further explained.82.196.112.105 (talk) 08:23, 15 April 2018 (UTC)

I don't think the graphic gives much information and could be removed until we have a better one. I would agree with having sections based on intent.

Indeed. The first sentence should show the difference. Zezen (talk) 09:22, 23 May 2019 (UTC)

I rewrote the intro to clarify misinformation is a superset of disinformation, according to the dictionary. -- Beland (talk) 01:09, 4 February 2022 (UTC)

That's really helpful. In my copy edit I came across numerous instances where the content veered back into "disinformation" territory. It may require some further clarification in the body. Pyrrho the Skipper (talk) 01:12, 4 February 2022 (UTC)

Student edits

Hello all, im currently taking a college course that requires me to go through the wiki editing modules leading up to the day where we publish our sandbox edits to our assigned page (which is today). I added a bunch of contributions and including two original paragraphs, just wanted to give those who are about to work on/have worked on this page in the past a heads up as to what's new, thanks! You can see my edits in the history tab I annotated everything I did. Here is a link to my sandbox user:FERDA1738/sandbox FERDA1738 (talk) 03:21, 23 November 2020 (UTC)

Causes section

The causes section has/had a number of typos, some of which I edited. However, the tone seems like it was excerpted from college essay paper. It has insufficient references. Additionally, to state that there are no consequences for misinformation is inaccurate – there can be social and reputational consequences and civil and criminal liability. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 166.216.159.20 (talk) 21:37, 20 October 2021 (UTC)

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The section on social media is illegible

The section of disinformation on social media is a collection of disconnected sentences that lack coherence. It would be great to fix this part by connecting sentences into legible paragraphs, --MexFin (talk) 13:11, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

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Wiki Education assignment: True Crime and Misinformation

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Definitions of the terms might vary between cultural contexts

The lead contains the following, "However, definitions of the terms might vary between cultural contexts."

This statement could become outdated, if the term might vary, it also might not vary. If there is evidence of different definitions of the term between cultural contexts, more encyclopaedic language could be used. Lightbloom (talk) 14:46, 7 September 2023 (UTC)

Merge proposal

I propose merging Fake news into Misinformation. I think the content in Fake news can easily be explained in the context of Misinformation, and a merge would not cause any article-size or weighting problems in misinformation. CaribDigita (talk) 14:21, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

I wouldn't. Fake news is more disinformation than misinformation, and all three articles are long enough that merging would either create a behemoth of an article or cut out a lot of valid content. --BDD (talk) 15:04, 8 November 2023 (UTC)

I second this. CodemWiki (talk) 17:28, 8 November 2023 (UTC)

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Opinion painted as fact

A lot of this article seems to be trying to express opinions as fact. For example,

"Many different things cause miscommunication, but the underlying factor is information literacy. Because information is distributed by various means, it is often hard for users to ask questions of credibility."

It's stating as fact that "misinformation" is caused by a "lack of literacy", not by lies printed in newspapers. This is one way to look at it, but it is only one way.

There have been totalitarian states that control all information. Then the problem is not the fact that information is distributed by "various means", but by only one method: the central government. DenverCoder19 (talk) 18:32, 7 March 2024 (UTC)

I concur. Wikipedia:Be bold but not reckless. DavidMCEddy (talk) 19:04, 7 March 2024 (UTC)