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Misinformation on Social Media

This guide provides an overview of the problem of misinformation on social media. It includes tools for evaluating information, as well as lesson plans, resources, and activities for instructors to teach students how to evaluate information and spot misin

Definitions

Misinformation is information that is false or misleading (Adams et al., 2023).

Disinformation is false information that is either created or shared intentionally with the knowledge that is false and with the intent to deceive (Adams et al., 2023).

7 Types of Mis- and Disinformation

Many types of false or misleading information fall under the broad categories of mis- and disinformation, with varying degrees of intent, fabrication, and manipulation. This chart from FirstDraft shows 7 types of mis- and disinformation on a continuum from least to most manipulative:

Chart from FirstDraft News showing 7 types of mis- and disinformation on a continuum from left to right. The types and descriptions in order are Satire or Parody (no intention to cause harm but has potential to fool), False Connection (when headlines, visuals, or captions don't support the content), Misleading Content (misleading use of information to frame an issue or individual), False Context (when genuine content is shared with false contextual information), Imposter Content (when genuine sources are impersonated), Manipulated Content (when genuine information or imagery is manipulated to deceive), and Fabricated Content (new content is 100% false, designed to deceive and do harm)

(Wardle, 2017)