CRIM2010 Chap.7 Misinformation, Disinformation and Fake News
Misinformation, Disinformation and Fake News
False information is social engineering at the level of a whole community. This chapter defines misinformation, disinformation, fake news, deepfakes and rumours by intent and form, follows the motives behind disinformation from political gain to trolling, and traces its political, economic and medical impacts through cases such as fraudulent takeover offers.
It then explains how falsehood spreads: who shares, how aggregators and recommendation systems amplify it, the roughly 20% of accounts that were bots in one global study, astroturfing, echo chambers and closed messaging apps.
The chapter also looks at detection.
Tools that score how predictable a text is, or that are trained adversarially, can flag machine-written material, but they are aids rather than proof and older tools struggle with newer models. Understanding why false content spreads, through novelty, group identity and the design of feeds, is therefore as important as spotting it.
What this chapter covers
- 01
The infodemic warning
- 02
Misinformation against disinformation
- 03
Fake news, deepfakes and rumours
- 04
Motives behind disinformation
- 05
Market, political and medical harm
- 06
Bots, astroturfing and echo chambers
Worked example · free
Sorting four posts by intent and form
- 1(a) No intent to deceive: misinformation.
- 1(b) Deliberate and dressed as journalism: fake news, a form of disinformation.
- 1(c) Synthetic video of a real person: a deepfake.
- 1(d) Truth and origin unknown: a rumour.
Key terms
- Fake news
- Fabricated information that mimics news media in form but not in organisational process or intent.
- Deepfake
- Synthetic audio or video that makes a real person appear to say or do something they never did.
- Rumour
- Unverified hearsay whose truth is unknown.
- Astroturfing
- Coordinated fake personas, paid posters and bots manufacturing the appearance of grassroots support.
- Echo chamber
- A network of like-minded users in which unchallenged consensus lets false claims persist.
- Malvertising
- Advertising that spreads malware, sometimes using shocking false stories to draw clicks.
- Infodemic
- An overwhelming flood of information, much of it false, that spreads alongside a crisis.
Misinformation, Disinformation and Fake News FAQ
What is the difference between misinformation and disinformation?
Misinformation is false or inaccurate content spread by people who do not intend to deceive. Disinformation is spread deliberately to mislead, including propaganda and manipulated material. The same false claim can be either, depending on whether the person spreading it knows it is false.
Why do criminologists usually treat fake news as disinformation?
Fabricating a news-style story almost always serves a purpose, whether political, financial or ideological, so its author intends to deceive. The lecture notes that fake news is rarely made just for fun, which places it on the deliberate side of the line.
How did bots feature in the misinformation workshop?
Ng and Carley define bots by automation and found that bot users averaged around 20% of accounts across the events they studied. Bots mass-produce and amplify content, inflate followers and coordinate relationships, which helps astroturfing create false consensus.
Who is most likely to share misinformation?
The lecture lists people who do not fact-check, older users, the politically extreme and those reluctant to accept new ideas. Novel content spreads faster, and sharing can strengthen membership of a group, which is why echo chambers and closed messaging apps make false claims so persistent.
What are the three ways information is manipulated?
The lecture distinguishes missing context, where crucial facts are left out; deceptive editing, where key parts of a genuine photo or video are changed; and malicious transformation, such as deepfakes that make fabricated audio or video look real.
Assessment move
Learn the five types with the two sorting questions, intent and form, and practise on invented posts until the labels are automatic. Keep one real case for each kind of impact: the Fitbit and Avon offers for markets, electoral fraud for politics and vaccine refusal for health. For written answers, organise analysis by people, process and technology, and end with how the dissemination route could be interrupted.
Then practise one answer explaining how bots and astroturfing turn a false claim into an apparent consensus.
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