Misinformed About Disinformation

Are misinformation and disinformation dooming democracy? Recent years have produced a flood of news stories saying so. But disinformation (intentionally misleading information such as propaganda) is nothing new; as scholar Thomas Rid argued in Active Measures, long before the internet, spy agencies across the world used such tactics to undermine enemy nations. So, too, with misinformation (false information that might be intended to deceive); the advertising industry arguably wouldn’t exist without it.