disinformation
In plain wordsDeliberate falsehoods or distortions dressed up as fact, for example from a government or campaign trying to sway an election or sow distrust.
Falsehood or distortion that is manufactured or spread knowingly in order to mislead, typically on behalf of a state, party, company or cause. Organized efforts are called influence operationsinfluence operation, n.: An organized, often secret campaign to sway public opinion — fake accounts posting propaganda, for instance — which AI can make cheaper by writing posts, translating them and inventing fake personas. or information operations; when they use fake accounts and automation to simulate grassroots support, platforms speak of coordinated inauthentic behavior and researchers of computational propaganda. Generative AI changes the economics of disinformation: language modelslarge language model, n.: A computer program trained on enormous amounts of text to predict the words that come next. At vast scale, that simple skill lets it chat, answer questions, translate, summarize and write code. write fluent, varied text in many languages and personas at almost no cost, image, voice and video generators produce deepfakesdeepfake, n.: A fake but realistic video, photo or voice recording made with AI that puts words in a real person's mouth or shows them in a scene that never happened., and agentsAI agent, n.: An AI system that does not just answer but acts: given a goal, it decides on steps, uses tools such as a browser or code editor, checks the results and keeps going until the job is done. can operate networks of accounts. Threat reports published by AI developers since 2024 describe state-linked operations using models to generate and translate content, so far with limited measured reach. Defenses include provenance and watermarkingAI watermarking, n.: Hiding an invisible signal in AI-generated text, images, audio or video so that software can later tell the content was made by AI — like a banknote's watermark, but undetectable to the eye., detection of coordinated behavior, platform enforcement and media literacy.
The network used a language model to post the same disinformation in six languages under hundreds of personas.
Origin
From Russian dezinformatsiya, the name for Soviet-era deception operations; the English word spread during the Cold War and was in wide use by the 1980s. 'Computational propaganda' was popularized by Samuel Woolley and Philip Howard's Oxford research project from about 2015.
Usage note
Intent is the defining difference from misinformationmisinformation, n.: False or misleading information that spreads, whether or not the people sharing it know it is wrong. AI can produce it by mistake and makes it cheaper to create., though it is often hard to prove, and content moves between the two categories as it is reshared by people who believe it.
Related
- misinformationmisinformation, n.: False or misleading information that spreads, whether or not the people sharing it know it is wrong. AI can produce it by mistake and makes it cheaper to create.
- deepfakedeepfake, n.: A fake but realistic video, photo or voice recording made with AI that puts words in a real person's mouth or shows them in a scene that never happened.
- synthetic mediasynthetic media, n.: Images, video, audio or text created or substantially altered by AI rather than recorded or written directly by people, whether for art, entertainment, business or deception.
- liar's dividendliar's dividend, n.: The advantage dishonest people gain once everyone knows fakes are easy to make: they can wave away real evidence against them by claiming it was made by AI.
- AI watermarkingAI watermarking, n.: Hiding an invisible signal in AI-generated text, images, audio or video so that software can later tell the content was made by AI — like a banknote's watermark, but undetectable to the eye.
- content moderationcontent moderation, n.: Checking what people post, or what an AI produces, and removing, limiting or labeling whatever breaks the rules or the law — done by people, by AI, or by both together.
- AI surveillanceAI surveillance, n.: Using AI to watch, identify, track or profile people on a scale no team of humans could manage, for example by scanning camera feeds or analyzing phone and online data.
- misinformationmisinformation, n.: False or misleading information that spreads, whether or not the people sharing it know it is wrong. AI can produce it by mistake and makes it cheaper to create.
Sources
- Woolley, S. C. & Howard, P. N. (eds.) (2018). Computational Propaganda: Political Parties, Politicians, and Political Manipulation on Social Media. Oxford University Press.
- Goldstein, J. A., Sastry, G., Musser, M., DiResta, R., Gentzel, M. & Sedova, K. (2023). Generative Language Models and Automated Influence Operations: Emerging Threats and Potential Mitigations. Georgetown CSET, OpenAI and Stanford Internet Observatory.
Mentioned in
deepfakedeepfake, n.: A fake but realistic video, photo or voice recording made with AI that puts words in a real person's mouth or shows them in a scene that never happened., misinformationmisinformation, n.: False or misleading information that spreads, whether or not the people sharing it know it is wrong. AI can produce it by mistake and makes it cheaper to create., dead internet theorydead internet theory, n.: The idea, first a fringe conspiracy theory, that much of what we see online is now made by bots and AI rather than by real people., influence operationinfluence operation, n.: An organized, often secret campaign to sway public opinion — fake accounts posting propaganda, for instance — which AI can make cheaper by writing posts, translating them and inventing fake personas., liar's dividendliar's dividend, n.: The advantage dishonest people gain once everyone knows fakes are easy to make: they can wave away real evidence against them by claiming it was made by AI., synthetic mediasynthetic media, n.: Images, video, audio or text created or substantially altered by AI rather than recorded or written directly by people, whether for art, entertainment, business or deception., Digital Services ActDigital Services Act, prop. n.: The EU law that sets rules for online platforms and search engines — how they handle illegal content, explain their recommendation algorithms and manage the risks their services create for society., LLM groomingLLM grooming, n.: Flooding the internet with propaganda written mainly for machines rather than people, hoping AI chatbots will soak it up and repeat it to their users., personhood credentialpersonhood credential, n.: A digital pass that lets you prove online that you are a real human, not an AI or a bot, without having to reveal who you are.