Disinformation

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disinformation 

Disinformation is a subset of propaganda and is false information that is spread deliberately to deceive. It is also known as black propaganda. It is sometimes confused with misinformation, which is false information but is not deliberate.

The English word disinformation is from the application of the latin prefix dis- to information making the meaning "reversal or removal of information". The rarely used word had appeared with this usage in print at least as far back as 1887. Some consider it a loan translation of The Russian dezinformatsiya, derived from the title of a KGB black propaganda department. Defector Ion Mihai Pacepa claimed Joseph Stalin coined the term, giving it a French-sounding name to claim it had a Western origin. Russian use began with a "special disinformation office" in 1923. Disinformation was defined in Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1952) as "false information with the intention to deceive public opinion". Operation INFEKTION was a Soviet disinformation campaign to influence opinion that the U.S. invented AIDS. The U.S. did not actively counter disinformation until 1980, when a fake document reported that the U.S. supported apartheid.

The word disinformation did not appear in English dictionaries until 1939. English use increased in 1986, after revelations that the Reagan Administration engaged in disinformation against Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. By 1990, it was pervasive in U.S. politics; and by 2001 referred generally to lying and propaganda.

Etymology and early usage

The English word disinformation, which did not appear in dictionaries until the late 1980s, is a translation of the Russian дезинформация, transliterated as dezinformatsiya. Where misinformation refers to inaccuracies that stem from error, disinformation is a deliberate falsehood promulgated by design. Misinformation can be used to create disinformation when known misinformation is purposefully and intentionally disseminated. The tactic has been used throughout history, being deployed during the long Roman-Persian Wars, at the Battle of Mount Gindarus, the Battle of Telephis–Ollaria, and Heraclius assault on Persia,for instance.

Disinformation is primarily carried out by government intelligence agencies, but has also been used by non-governmental organizations and businesses. Front groups are a form of disinformation, as they mislead the public about their true objectives and who their controllers are. Most recently, disinformation has been deliberately spread through social media in the form of "fake news", disinformation masked as legitimate news articles and meant to mislead readers or viewers. Disinformation may include distribution of forged documents, manuscripts, and photographs, or spreading dangerous rumours and fabricated intelligence. Use of these tactics can lead to blowback, however, causing such unintended consequences such as defamation lawsuits or damage to the dis-informer's reputation.

Use of the term related to a Russian tactical weapon started in 1923, when the deputy chairman of the KGB-precursor the State Political Directorate (GPU), Józef Unszlicht, called for the foundation of "a special disinformation office to conduct active intelligence operations". The GPU was the first organization in the Soviet Union to use the term disinformation for their intelligence tactics. William Safire wrote in his 1993 book, Quoth the Maven, that disinformation was used by the KGB predecessor to indicate: "manipulation of a nation's intelligence system through the injection of credible, but misleading data". From this point on, disinformation became a tactic used in the Soviet political warfare called active measures. Active measures were a crucial part of Soviet intelligence strategy involving forgery as covert operation, subversion, and media manipulation. The 2003 encyclopedia Propaganda and Mass Persuasion states that disinformation came from dezinformatsia, a term used by the Russian black propaganda unit known as Service A that referred to active measures. The term was used in 1939, related to a "German Disinformation Service". The 1991 edition of The Merriam-Webster New Book of Word Histories defines disinformation as a probable translation of the Russian dezinformatsiya. This dictionary notes that it was possible the English version of the word and the Russian-language version developed independently in parallel to each other—out of ongoing frustration related to the spread of propaganda before World War II.

Former Romanian secret police senior official Ion Mihai Pacepa exposed disinformation history in his book Disinformation (2013).

Ion Mihai Pacepa, former senior official from the Romanian secret police, said the word was coined by Joseph Stalin and used during World War II. The Stalinist government then used disinformation tactics in both World War II and the Cold War. Soviet intelligence used the term maskirovka (Russian military deception) to refer to a combination of tactics including disinformation, simulation, camouflage, and concealment. Pacepa and Ronald J. Rychlak authored a book entitled Disinformation, in which Pacepa wrote that Stalin gave the tactic a French-sounding title in order to put forth the ruse that it was a technique used by the Western world. Pacepa recounted reading Soviet instruction manuals while working as an intelligence officer, that characterized disinformation as a strategy used by the Russian government that had early origins in Russian history. Pacepa recalled that the Soviet manuals said the origins of disinformation stemmed from phony towns constructed by Grigory Potyomkin in Crimea to wow Catherine the Great during her 1783 journey to the region—subsequently referred to as Potemkin villages.

In their book Propaganda and Persuasion, authors Garth Jowett and Victoria O'Donnell characterized disinformation as a cognate from dezinformatsia, and was developed from the same name given to a KGB black propaganda department. The black propaganda division was reported to have formed in 1955 and was referred to as the Dezinformatsiya agency. Former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) director William Colby explained how the Dezinformatsiya agency operated, saying that it would place a false article in a left-leaning newspaper. The fraudulent tale would make its way to a Communist periodical, before eventually being published by a Soviet newspaper, which would say its sources were undisclosed individuals. By this process a falsehood was globally proliferated as a legitimate piece of reporting.

According to Oxford Dictionaries the English word disinformation, as translated from the Russian disinformatsiya, began to see use in the 1950s. The term disinformation began to see wider use as a form of Soviet tradecraft, defined in the 1952 official Great Soviet Encyclopedia as "the dissemination (in the press, radio, etc.) of false information with the intention to deceive public opinion." During the most-active period of the Cold War, from 1945 to 1989, the tactic was used by multiple intelligence agencies including the Soviet KGB, British Secret Intelligence Service, and the American CIA. The word disinformation saw increased usage in the 1960s and wider purveyance by the 1980s. A major disinformation effort in 1964, Operation Neptune, was designed by the Czechoslovak secret service, the StB, to defame West European politicians as former Nazi collaborators. Former Soviet bloc intelligence officer Ladislav Bittman, the first disinformation practitioner to publicly defect to the West, described the official definition as different from the practice: "The interpretation is slightly distorted because public opinion is only one of the potential targets. Many disinformation games are designed only to manipulate the decision-making elite, and receive no publicity." Bittman was deputy chief of the Disinformation Department of the Czechoslovak Intelligence Service, and testified before the United States Congress on his knowledge of disinformation in 1980.

Defections reveal covert operations

Chief of Russian foreign intelligence Yevgeny Primakov confirmed in 1992 that Operation INFEKTION was a disinformation campaign to make the world believe that the United States had invented AIDS.

The extent of Soviet disinformation covert operation campaigns came to light through the defections of KGB officers and officers of allied Soviet bloc services from the late 1960s to the 1980s. Stanislav Levchenko and Ilya Dzerkvilov were some of the Soviet defectors. By 1990, both men had written books recounting their work on disinformation operations for the KGB. Archival documentation revealed in the disorder of the fall of the Soviet Union later confirmed their testimonials.

An early example of successful Soviet disinformation was the 1961 pamphlet, A Study of a Master Spy (Allen Dulles). It was published in the United Kingdom and was highly critical of U.S. Director of Central Intelligence Allen Dulles. The purported authors were given as Independent Labour Party Member of Parliament Bob Edwards and the reporter Kenneth Dunne, but the real author was senior disinformation officer KGB Colonel Vassily Sitnikov. in 1968, the fake Who's Who in the CIA was published, which was quoted as authoritative in the West until the early 1990s.

According to senior SVR officer Sergei Tretyakov, the KGB had been responsible for creating the entire nuclear winter story as an attempt to stop the deployment of Pershing II missiles. Tretyakov said that in 1979, the KGB started work to prevent the United States from deploying the missiles in Western Europe and that they had been directed by Yuri Andropov to distribute disinformation, based on a faked "doomsday report" by the Soviet Academy of Sciences. The report contained false information on the effect of nuclear war on climate, and was distributed to peace groups, environmentalists, and the journal AMBIO: A Journal of the Human Environment.

Deception, Disinformation, and Strategic Communications, cover illustrating propaganda from Operation INFEKTION

During the 1970s, the U.S. intelligence apparatus made little effort to counter Soviet disinformation campaigns. That posture changed during the Carter administration, however, after the White House had been made the subject of a propaganda operation by Soviet intelligence to affect international relations between the U.S. and South Africa. On 17 September 1980, White House Press Secretary Jody Powell acknowledged a falsified Presidential Review Memorandum on Africa falsely stated that the U.S. had endorsed the apartheid government in South Africa and was actively committed to discrimination against African Americans. Prior to the revelation by Powell, an advance copy of the 18 September 1980 issue of San Francisco-based publication the Sun Reporter had been disseminated, which carried the fake claims. Sun Reporter was published by Carlton Benjamin Goodlett, a Presidential Committee member of a Soviet front group, the World Peace Council. U.S. President Jimmy Carter was appalled at the lies, and his administration then displayed increased interest in the CIA's efforts to counter Soviet disinformation.

In 1982, the CIA issued a report on active measures used by Soviet intelligence. The report documented numerous instances of disinformation campaigns against the U.S., including planting a notion that it had organized the 1979 Grand Mosque seizure, as well as forgery of documents purporting to show the U.S. would use nuclear bombs on its NATO allies.

In 1985, the Soviets launched an elaborate disinformation campaign called Operation INFEKTION to influence global opinion that the U.S. had invented AIDS. The campaign included allegations that the disease had been created as an "ethnic weapon" to destroy non-whites. The head of Russian foreign intelligence, Yevgeny Primakov, admitted the existence of the Operation INFEKTION in 1992.

In 1985, Aldrich Ames gave the KGB a significant amount of information on CIA informants, and the Soviet government swiftly moved to arrest those individuals. Soviet intelligence feared that the rapid action would alert the CIA that Ames was a spy, however. To conceal Ames's duplicity from the CIA, the KGB manufactured disinformation as to the reasoning behind the arrests of the intelligence agents. In the summer of 1985, a KGB officer who was a double agent working for the CIA on a mission in Africa traveled to a dead drop in Moscow on his way home, but never reported in. The CIA heard from a European KGB source that its agent had been arrested. Simultaneously, the FBI and CIA learned from a second KGB source of its agent's arrest. Only after Ames had been outed as a spy for the KGB would it become apparent that the KGB had known all along that both men had been working for the U.S. government, and that Soviet disinformation had been successful in confounding the American intelligence agency.

Russian disinformation since 2000

In the post-Soviet era, disinformation evolved to become a key tactic in the military doctrine of Russia. Russia has used disinformation operations since the 19th century.

The European Union and NATO saw Russian disinformation in the early twenty-first century as such a problem that both set up special units to analyze and debunk fabricated falsehoods. NATO founded a modest facility in Latvia to respond to disinformation  and agreement by heads of state and governments in March 2015 let the EU create the European External Action Service East Stratcom Task Force, which publishes weekly reports on its website "EU vs Disinfo." The website and its partners identified and debunked more than 3,500 pro-Kremlin disinformation cases between September 2015 and November 2017.

Russia meanwhile used its television outlet RT (formerly known as Russia Today) and the Sputnik news agency. When explaining the 2016 annual report of the Swedish Security Service on disinformation, the representative Wilhelm Unge stated: "We mean everything from Internet trolls to propaganda and misinformation spread by media companies like RT and Sputnik." RT and Sputnik were created to focus on Western audiences and function by Western standards, and RT tends to focus on how problems are the fault of Western countries.

In the 2010s, as social media gained prominence, Russia then began to use platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube to spread disinformation. Russian web brigades and bots, typically operated by Russia's Internet Research Agency (IRA), were commonly used to disseminate disinformation throughout these social media channels. As of late 2017, Facebook believed that as many as 126 million of its users had seen content from Russian disinformation campaigns on its platform. Twitter stated that it had found 36,000 Russian bots spreading tweets related to the 2016 U.S. elections. Elsewhere, Russia has used social media to destabilize former Soviet states such as Ukraine and Western nations such as France and Spain.

In the runup to and during the 2020 U.S. presidential election, Russia's IRA demonstrated evolved tactics for spreading disinformation. Probably to evade the detection mechanisms of social media platforms, the IRA co-opted activists working for a human-rights focused Ghanaian NGO to target black communities in the U.S. Russian campaigns have also evolved to become more cross-platform, with content spreading, not only on Facebook and Twitter, but also on Tumblr, Wordpress, and Medium. The IRA is also more emboldened, with evidence that they recruited U.S. journalists to write articles critical of U.S. presidential candidate Joe Biden.

English language spread

How Disinformation Can Be Spread, explanation by U.S. Defense Department (2001)

The United States Intelligence Community appropriated use of the term disinformation in the 1950s from the Russian dezinformatsiya, and began to use similar strategies during the Cold War and in conflict with other nations. The New York Times reported in 2000 that during the CIA's effort to substitute Mohammed Reza Pahlavi for then-Prime Minister of Iran Mohammad Mossadegh, the CIA placed fictitious stories in the local newspaper. Reuters documented how, subsequent to the 1979 Soviet Union invasion of Afghanistan during the Soviet–Afghan War, the CIA put false articles in newspapers of Islamic-majority countries, inaccurately stating that Soviet embassies had "invasion day celebrations". Reuters noted a former U.S. intelligence officer said they would attempt to gain the confidence of reporters and use them as secret agents, to affect a nation's politics by way of their local media.

In October 1986, the term gained increased currency in the U.S. when it was revealed that two months previously, the Reagan Administration had engaged in a disinformation campaign against then-leader of Libya, Muammar Gaddafi. White House representative Larry Speakes said reports of a planned attack on Libya as first broken by The Wall Street Journal on August 25, 1986 were "authoritative", and other newspapers including The Washington Post then wrote articles saying this was factual. U.S. State Department representative Bernard Kalb resigned from his position in protest over the disinformation campaign, and said: "Faith in the word of America is the pulse beat of our democracy."

The executive branch of the Reagan administration kept watch on disinformation campaigns through three yearly publications by the Department of State: Active Measures: A Report on the Substance and Process of Anti-U.S. Disinformation and Propaganda Campaigns (1986); Report on Active Measures and Propaganda, 1986–87 (1987); and Report on Active Measures and Propaganda, 1987–88 (1989).

Disinformation first made an appearance in dictionaries in 1985, specifically, Webster's New College Dictionary and the American Heritage Dictionary. In 1986, the term disinformation was not defined in Webster's New World Thesaurus or New Encyclopædia Britannica. After the Soviet term became widely known in the 1980s, native speakers of English broadened the term as "any government communication (either overt or covert) containing intentionally false and misleading material, often combined selectively with true information, which seeks to mislead and manipulate either elites or a mass audience."

By 1990, use of the term disinformation had fully established itself in the English language within the lexicon of politics. By 2001, the term disinformation had come to be known as simply a more civil phrase for saying someone was lying. Stanley B. Cunningham wrote in his 2002 book The Idea of Propaganda that disinformation had become pervasively used as a synonym for propaganda.

Responses from cultural leaders

Pope Francis condemned disinformation in a 2016 interview, after being made the subject of a fake news website during the 2016 U.S. election cycle which falsely claimed that he supported Donald Trump. He said the worst thing the news media could do was spread disinformation. He said the act was a sin, comparing those who spread disinformation to individuals who engage in coprophilia.

Ethics in warfare

In a contribution to the 2014 book Military Ethics and Emerging Technologies, writers David Danks and Joseph H. Danks discuss the ethical implications in using disinformation as a tactic during information warfare. They note there has been a significant degree of philosophical debate over the issue as related to the ethics of war and use of the technique. The writers describe a position whereby the use of disinformation is occasionally allowed, but not in all situations. Typically the ethical test to consider is whether the disinformation was performed out of a motivation of good faith and acceptable according to the rules of war. By this test, the tactic during World War II of putting fake inflatable tanks in visible locations on the Pacific Islands in order to falsely present the impression that there were larger military forces present would be considered as ethically permissible. Conversely, disguising a munitions plant as a healthcare facility in order to avoid attack would be outside the bounds of acceptable use of disinformation during war.

Research

Research related to disinformation studies is increasing as an applied area of inquiry. The call to formally classify disinformation as a cybersecurity threat is made by advocates due to its increase in social networking sites. Researchers working for the University of Oxford found that over a three-year period the number of governments engaging in online disinformation rose from 28 in 2017, to 40 in 2018, and 70 in 2019. Despite the proliferation of social media websites, Facebook and Twitter showed the most activity in terms of active disinformation campaigns. Techniques reported on included the use of bots to amplify hate speech, the illegal harvesting of data, and paid trolls to harass and threaten journalists.

Consequences of exposure to disinformation online

There is a broad consensus amongst scholars that there is a high degree of disinformation, misinformation, and propaganda online; however, it is unclear to what extent such disinformation has on political attitudes in the public and, therefore, political outcomes. This conventional wisdom has come mostly from investigative journalists, with a particular rise during the 2016 U.S. election: some of the earliest work came from Craig Silverman at Buzzfeed News. Cass Sunstein supported this in #Republic, arguing that the internet would become rife with echo chambers and informational cascades of misinformation leading to a highly polarized and ill-informed society.

However, research done on this topic points less clearly in this direction. For example, internet access and time spent on social media does not appear correlated with polarisation. Further, misinformation appears not to significantly change political knowledge of those exposed to it. There seems to be a higher level of diversity of news sources that users are exposed to on Facebook and Twitter than conventional wisdom would dictate, as well as a higher frequency of cross-spectrum discussion. Other evidence has found that disinformation campaigns rarely succeed in altering the foreign policies of the targeted states.

Strategies for spreading disinformation

There are four main methods of spreading disinformation recognised in academic literature:

1. Selective censorship
2. Manipulation of search rankings
3. Hacking and releasing
4. Directly Sharing Disinformation

Lie

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lie

 

Pinocchio, a symbol of untruthfulness

A lie is an assertion that is believed to be false, typically used with the purpose of deceiving someone. The practice of communicating lies is called lying. A person who communicates a lie may be termed a liar. Lies may serve a variety of instrumental, interpersonal, or psychological functions for the individuals who use them.

Generally, the term "lie" carries a negative connotation, and depending on the context a person who communicates a lie may be subject to social, legal, religious, or criminal sanctions.

Types and associated terms

• A barefaced, bald-faced or bold-faced lie is an impudent, brazen, shameless, flagrant, or audacious lie that is sometimes but not always undisguised and that it is even then not always obvious to those hearing it.

• A big lie is one that attempts to trick the victim into believing something major, which will likely be contradicted by some information the victim already possesses, or by their common sense. When the lie is of sufficient magnitude it may succeed, due to the victim's reluctance to believe that an untruth on such a grand scale would indeed be concocted.

• A black lie is about simple and callous selfishness. We tell black lies when others gain nothing and the sole purpose is either to get ourselves out of trouble (reducing harm against ourselves) or to gain something we desire (increasing benefits for ourselves). The worst black lies are very harmful for others. Perhaps the very worst gain us a little yet harm others a great deal. 

• A blue lie is a form of lying that is told purportedly to benefit a collective or "in the name of the collective good". The origin of the term "blue lie" is possibly from cases where police officers made false statements to protect the police force or to ensure the success of a legal case against an accused. This differs from the blue wall of silence in that a blue lie is not an omission but a stated falsehood.

• To bluff is to pretend to have a capability or intention one does not possess. Bluffing is an act of deception that is rarely seen as immoral when it takes place in the context of a game, such as poker, where this kind of deception is consented to in advance by the players. For instance, gamblers who deceive other players into thinking they have different cards to those they really hold, or athletes who hint that they will move left and then dodge right are not considered to be lying (also known as a feint or juke). In these situations, deception is acceptable and is commonly expected as a tactic.

• Bullshit (also B.S., bullcrap, bull) does not necessarily have to be a complete fabrication. While a lie is related by a speaker who believes what is said is false, bullshit is offered by a speaker who does not care whether what is said is true because the speaker is more concerned with giving the hearer some impression. Thus bullshit may be either true or false, but demonstrates a lack of concern for the truth that is likely to lead to falsehoods.

A motivational poster about lying declares "An ostrich only thinks he 'covers up'"

• A cover-up may be used to deny, defend, or obfuscate a lie, errors, embarrassing actions, or lifestyle, and/or lie(s) made previously. One may deny a lie made on a previous occasion, or alternatively, one may claim that a previous lie was not as egregious as it was. For example, to claim that a premeditated lie was really "only" an emergency lie, or to claim that a self-serving lie was really "only" a white lie or noble lie. This should not be confused with confirmation bias in which the deceiver is deceiving themselves.

• Defamation is the communication of a false statement that harms the reputation of an individual person, business, product, group, government, religion, or nation.

• To deflect is to avoid the subject that the lie is about, not giving attention to the lie. When attention is given to the subject the lie is based around, deflectors ignore or refuse to respond. Skillful deflectors are passive-aggressive, who when confronted with the subject choose to ignore and not respond.

• Disinformation is intentionally false or misleading information that is spread in a calculated way to deceive target audiences.

• An exaggeration occurs when the most fundamental aspects of a statement are true, but only to a certain degree. It also is seen as "stretching the truth" or making something appear more powerful, meaningful, or real than it is. Saying that someone devoured most of something when they only ate half would be considered an exaggeration. An exaggeration might be easily found to be a hyperbole where a person's statement (i.e. in informal speech, such as "He did this one million times already!") is meant not to be understood literally.

Infographic How to spot fake news published by the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions

• Fake news is supposed to be a type of yellow journalism that consists of deliberate misinformation or hoaxes spread via traditional print and broadcast news media or online social media. Sometimes the term is applied as a deceptive device to deflect attention from uncomfortable truths and facts, however.

• A fib is a lie that is easy to forgive due to its subject being a trivial matter; for example, a child may tell a fib by claiming that the family dog broke a household vase, when the child was the one who broke it.

• Fraud refers to the act of inducing another person or people to believe a lie in order to secure material or financial gain for the liar. Depending on the context, fraud may subject the liar to civil or criminal penalties.

• A gray lie is told partly to help others and partly to help ourselves. It may vary in the shade of gray, depending on the balance of help and harm. Gray lies are, almost by definition, hard to clarify. For example you can lie to help a friend out of trouble but then gain the reciprocal benefit of them lying for you while those they have harmed in some way lose out.

• A half-truth is a deceptive statement that includes some element of truth. The statement might be partly true, the statement may be totally true, but only part of the whole truth, or it may employ some deceptive element, such as improper punctuation or double meaning, especially if the intent is to deceive, evade, blame, or misrepresent the truth.

• An honest lie (or confabulation) may be identified by verbal statements or actions that inaccurately describe the history, background, and present situations. There is generally no intent to misinform and the individual is unaware that their information is false. Because of this, it is not technically a lie at all since, by definition, there must be an intent to deceive for the statement to be considered a lie.

• Jocose lies are lies meant in jest, intended to be understood as such by all present parties. Teasing and irony are examples. A more elaborate instance is seen in some storytelling traditions, where the storyteller's insistence that the story is the absolute truth, despite all evidence to the contrary (i.e., tall tale), is considered humorous. There is debate about whether these are "real" lies, and different philosophers hold different views. The Crick Crack Club in London arranges a yearly "Grand Lying Contest" with the winner being awarded the coveted "Hodja Cup" (named for the Mulla Nasreddin: "The truth is something I have never spoken."). The winner in 2010 was Hugh Lupton. In the United States, the Burlington Liars' Club awards an annual title to the "World Champion Liar."

• Lie-to-children is a phrase that describes a simplified explanation of technical or complex subjects as a teaching method for children and laypeople. While lies-to-children are useful in teaching complex subjects to people who are new to the concepts discussed, they can promote the creation of misconceptions among the people who listen to them. The phrase has been incorporated by academics within the fields of biology, evolution, bioinformatics, and the social sciences. Media use of the term has extended to publications including The Conversation and Forbes.

• Lying by omission, also known as a continuing misrepresentation or quote mining, occurs when an important fact is left out in order to foster a misconception. Lying by omission includes the failure to correct pre-existing misconceptions. For example, when the seller of a car declares it has been serviced regularly, but does not mention that a fault was reported during the last service, the seller lies by omission. It may be compared to dissimulation. An omission is when a person tells most of the truth, but leaves out a few key facts that therefore, completely obscures the truth.

Consumer protection laws often mandate the posting of notices, such as this one which appears in all automotive repair shops in California.

• Lying in trade occurs when the seller of a product or service may advertise untrue facts about the product or service in order to gain sales, especially by competitive advantage. Many countries and states have enacted consumer protection laws intended to combat such fraud.

• A memory hole is a mechanism for the alteration or disappearance of inconvenient or embarrassing documents, photographs, transcripts, or other records, such as from a website or other archive, particularly as part of an attempt to give the impression that something never happened.

• Minimization is the opposite of exaggeration. It is a type of deception involving denial coupled with rationalization in situations where complete denial is implausible.

• Mutual deceit is a situation wherein lying is both accepted and expected or that the parties mutually accept the deceit in question. This can be demonstrated in the case of a poker game wherein the strategies rely on deception and bluffing to win.

Plato presented arguments to justify the use of noble lies in his Republic.

• A noble lie, which also could be called a strategic untruth, is one that normally would cause discord if uncovered, but offers some benefit to the liar and assists in an orderly society, therefore, potentially being beneficial to others. It is often told to maintain law, order, and safety.

• In psychiatry, pathological lying (also called compulsive lying, pseudologia fantastica, and mythomania) is a behavior of habitual or compulsive lying. It was first described in the medical literature in 1891 by Anton Delbrueck. Although it is a controversial topic, pathological lying has been defined as "falsification entirely disproportionate to any discernible end in view, may be extensive and very complicated, and may manifest over a period of years or even a lifetime". The individual may be aware they are lying, or may believe they are telling the truth, being unaware that they are relating fantasies.

• Perjury is the act of lying or making verifiably false statements on a material matter under oath or affirmation in a court of law, or in any of various sworn statements in writing. Perjury is a crime, because the witness has sworn to tell the truth and, for the credibility of the court to remain intact, witness testimony must be relied on as truthful.

• A polite lie is a lie that a politeness standard requires, and that usually is known to be untrue by both parties. Whether such lies are acceptable is heavily dependent on culture. A common polite lie in international etiquette may be to decline invitations because of "scheduling difficulties", or due to "diplomatic illness". Similarly, the butler lie is a small lie that usually is sent electronically and is used to terminate conversations or to save face.

• Puffery is an exaggerated claim typically found in advertising and publicity announcements, such as "the highest quality at the lowest price", or "always votes in the best interest of all the people". Such statements are unlikely to be true – but cannot be proven false and so, do not violate trade laws, especially as the consumer is expected to be able to determine that it is not the absolute truth.

• A red lie is about spite and revenge. It is driven by the motive to harm others even at the expense of harming oneself. When we are angry at others, perhaps because of a long feud or where we feel they have wronged us in some way, we feel a sense of betrayal and so seek retributive justice, which we may dispense without thought of consequence.

• The phrase "speaking with a forked tongue" means to deliberately say one thing and mean another or, to be hypocritical, or act in a duplicitous manner. This phrase was adopted by Americans around the time of the Revolution, and may be found in abundant references from the early nineteenth century – often reporting on American officers who sought to convince the Indigenous peoples of the Americas with whom they negotiated that they "spoke with a straight and not with a forked tongue" (as for example, President Andrew Jackson told members of the Creek Nation in 1829). According to one 1859 account, the proverb that the "white man spoke with a forked tongue" originated in the 1690s, in the descriptions by the indigenous peoples of French colonials in America inviting members of the Iroquois Confederacy to attend a peace conference, but when the Iroquois arrived, the French had set an ambush and proceeded to slaughter and capture the Iroquois.

• Weasel word is an informal term for words and phrases aimed at creating an impression that a specific or meaningful statement has been made, when in fact only a vague or ambiguous claim has been communicated, enabling the specific meaning to be denied if the statement is challenged. A more formal term is equivocation.

• A white lie is a harmless or trivial lie, especially one told in order to be polite or to avoid hurting someone's feelings or stopping them from being upset by the truth. A white lie also is considered a lie to be used for greater good (pro-social behavior). It sometimes is used to shield someone from a hurtful or emotionally-damaging truth, especially when not knowing the truth is deemed by the liar as completely harmless.

Consequences

The potential consequences of lying are manifold; some in particular are worth considering. Typically lies aim to deceive, when deception is successful, the hearer ends up acquiring a false belief (or at least something that the speaker believes to be false). When deception is unsuccessful, a lie may be discovered. The discovery of a lie may discredit other statements by the same speaker, staining his reputation. In some circumstances, it may also negatively affect the social or legal standing of the speaker. Lying in a court of law, for instance, is a criminal offense (perjury).

Hannah Arendt spoke about extraordinary cases in which an entire society is being lied to consistently. She said that the consequences of such lying are "not that you believe the lies, but rather that nobody believes anything any longer. This is because lies, by their very nature, have to be changed, and a lying government has constantly to rewrite its own history. On the receiving end you get not only one lie – a lie which you could go on for the rest of your days – but you get a great number of lies, depending on how the political wind blows."

Detection

The question of whether lies can be detected reliably through nonverbal means is a subject of some controversy.

Polygraph "lie detector" machines measure the physiological stress a subject endures in a number of measures while giving statements or answering questions. Spikes in stress indicators are purported to reveal lying. The accuracy of this method is widely disputed. In several well-known cases, application of the technique was proven to have been deceived. Nonetheless, it remains in use in many areas, primarily as a method for eliciting confessions or employment screening. The unreliability of polygraph results are the basis of such evaluations not being admissible as court evidence and, generally, the technique is perceived to be pseudoscience.

A recent study found that composing a lie takes longer than telling the truth and thus, the time taken to answer a question may be used as a method of lie detection, however, it also has been shown that instant answers with a lie may be proof of a prepared lie. A recommendation provided to resolve that contradiction is to try to surprise the subject and find a midway answer, not too quick, nor too long.

Ethics

Portrait bust of Aristotle made by Lysippos

Aristotle believed no general rule on lying was possible, because anyone who advocated lying could never be believed, he said. Although the philosophers, St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, and Immanuel Kant, condemned all lying, Thomas Aquinas did advance an argument for lying, however. According to all three, there are no circumstances in which, ethically, one may lie. Even if the only way to protect oneself is to lie, it is never ethically permissible to lie even in the face of murder, torture, or any other hardship. Each of these philosophers gave several arguments for the ethical basis against lying, all compatible with each other. Among the more important arguments are:

1. Lying is a perversion of the natural faculty of speech, the natural end of which is to communicate the thoughts of the speaker.
2. When one lies, one undermines trust in society.

Meanwhile, utilitarian philosophers have supported lies that achieve good outcomes – white lies. In his 2008 book, How to Make Good Decisions and Be Right All the Time, Iain King suggested a credible rule on lying was possible, and he defined it as: "Deceive only if you can change behaviour in a way worth more than the trust you would lose, were the deception discovered (whether the deception actually is exposed or not)."

In Lying, neuroscientist Sam Harris argues that lying is negative for the liar and the person who's being lied to. To say lies is to deny others access to reality, and often we cannot anticipate how harmful lies can be. The ones we lie to may fail to solve problems they could have solved only on a basis of good information. To lie also harms oneself, makes the liar distrust the person who's being lied to. Liars generally feel badly about their lies and sense a loss of sincerity, authenticity, and integrity. Harris asserts that honesty allows one to have deeper relationships and to bring all dysfunction in one's life to the surface.

In Human, All Too Human, philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche suggested that those who refrain from lying may do so only because of the difficulty involved in maintaining lies. This is consistent with his general philosophy that divides (or ranks) people according to strength and ability; thus, some people tell the truth only out of weakness.

In other species

Possession of the capacity to lie among non-humans has been asserted during language studies with great apes. In one instance, the gorilla Koko, when asked who tore a sink from the wall, pointed to one of her handlers and then laughed.

Deceptive body language, such as feints that mislead as to the intended direction of attack or flight, is observed in many species. A mother bird deceives when she pretends to have a broken wing to divert the attention of a perceived predator – including unwitting humans – from the eggs in her nest, instead to her, as she draws the predator away from the location of the nest, most notably a trait of the killdeer.

Cultural references

Close-up of the bronze statue depicting a walking Pinocchio, named Walking to Borås by Jim Dine

• Carlo Collodi's Pinocchio is a wooden puppet character often led into trouble by his propensity to lie; his nose grows with every one. Hence, long noses have become a caricature of liars.
• The Boy Who Cried Wolf, a fable attributed to Aesop about a boy who continually lies that a wolf is coming. When a wolf does appear, nobody believes him anymore.
• A famous anecdote by Parson Weems claims that George Washington once cut at a cherry tree with a hatchet when he was a small child. His father asked him who cut the cherry tree and Washington confessed his crime with the words: "I'm sorry, father, I cannot tell a lie."
• To Tell the Truth was the originator of a genre of game shows with three contestants claiming to be a person only one of them is.
• Glenn Kessler, a journalist at The Washington Post, awards one to four Pinocchios to politicians in his Washington Post Fact Checker blog.
• The cliché "All is fair in love and war", asserts justification for lies used to gain advantage in these situations.
• Sun Tzu declared that "All warfare is based on deception." Machiavelli advised in The Prince that a prince must hide his behaviors and become a "great liar and deceiver."
• Thomas Hobbes wrote in Leviathan: "In war, force and fraud are the two cardinal virtues."

1984 by George Orwell

• The concept of a memory hole was first popularized by George Orwell's dystopian novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four, where the Party's Ministry of Truth systematically re-created all potential historical documents, in effect re-writing all of history to match the often-changing state propaganda. These changes were complete and undetectable.
• In the film Big Fat Liar, the story producer Marty Wolf (a notorious and proud liar) steals a story from student Jason Shepard, telling of a character whose lies become out of control to the point where each lie he tells causes him to grow in size.
• In the film Liar Liar, the lawyer Fletcher Reede (Jim Carrey) cannot lie for 24 hours, due to a wish of his son that magically came true.
• In the 1985 film Max Headroom, the title character comments that one can always tell when a politician lies because "their lips move". The joke has been widely repeated and rephrased.
• Larry-Boy! And the Fib from Outer Space! was a Veggie Tales story of a crime-fighting super-hero with super-suction ears, having to stop an alien, calling himself "Fib", from destroying the town of Bumblyburg due to the lies that caused Fib to grow. Telling the truth is the moral to this story.
• Lie to Me is a television series based on behavior analysts who read lies through facial expressions and body language. The protagonists, Dr. Cal Lightman and Dr. Gillian Foster are based on the above-mentioned Dr. Paul Ekman and Dr. Maureen O'Sullivan.
• The Invention of Lying is a 2009 movie depicting the fictitious invention of the first lie, starring Ricky Gervais, Jennifer Garner, Rob Lowe, and Tina Fey.
• The Adventures of Baron Munchausen tell the story about an eighteenth-century baron who tells outrageous, unbelievable stories, all of which he claims are true.
• In the games Grand Theft Auto IV and Grand Theft Auto V, there's an agency named FIB, a parody of the FBI, which is known to cover up stories, cooperate with criminals, and extract information with the use of lying.

Psychology

It is asserted that the capacity to lie is a talent human beings possess universally.

The evolutionary theory proposed by Darwin states that only the fittest will survive and by lying, we aim to improve other's perception of our social image and status, capability, and desirability in general. Studies have shown that humans begin lying at a mere age of six months, through crying and laughing, to gain attention.

Scientific studies have shown differences in forms of lying across gender. Although men and women lie at equal frequencies, men are more likely to lie in order to please themselves while women are more likely to lie to please others. The presumption is that humans are individuals living in a world of competition and strict social norms, where they are able to use lies and deception to enhance chances of survival and reproduction.

Stereotypically speaking, Smith asserts that men like to exaggerate about their sexual expertise, but shy away from topics that degrade them while women understate their sexual expertise to make themselves more respectable and loyal in the eyes of men and avoid being labelled as a ‘scarlet woman’.

Those with Parkinson's disease show difficulties in deceiving others, difficulties that link to prefrontal hypometabolism. This suggests a link between the capacity for dishonesty and integrity of prefrontal functioning.

Pseudologia fantastica is a term applied by psychiatrists to the behavior of habitual or compulsive lying. Mythomania is the condition where there is an excessive or abnormal propensity for lying and exaggerating.

A recent study found that composing a lie takes longer than telling the truth. Or, as Chief Joseph succinctly put it, "It does not require many words to speak the truth."

Some people believe that they are convincing liars, however in many cases, they are not.

Religious perspectives

In the Bible

A Torah scroll recovered from Glockengasse Synagogue in Cologne

The Old Testament and New Testament of the Bible both contain statements that God cannot lie and that lying is immoral (Num. 23:19, Hab. 2:3, Heb. 6:13–18). Nevertheless, there are examples of God deliberately causing enemies to become disorientated and confused, in order to provide victory (2 Thess. 2:11; 1 Kings 22:23; Ezek. 14:9).

Various passages of the Bible feature exchanges that assert lying is immoral and wrong (Prov. 6:16–19; Ps. 5:6), (Lev. 19:11; Prov. 14:5; Prov. 30:6; Zeph. 3:13), (Isa. 28:15; Dan. 11:27), most famously, in the Ten Commandments: "Thou shalt not bear false witness" (Ex. 20:2–17; Deut. 5:6–21); Ex. 23:1; Matt. 19:18; Mark 10:19; Luke 18:20 a specific reference to perjury.

Other passages feature descriptive (not prescriptive) exchanges where lying was committed in extreme circumstances involving life and death, however, most Christian philosophers would argue that lying is never acceptable, but that even those who are righteous in God's eyes sin sometimes. Old Testament accounts of lying include:

• The midwives lied about their inability to kill the Israelite children. (Ex. 1:15–21).
• Rahab lied to the king of Jericho about hiding the Hebrew spies (Josh. 2:4–5) and was not killed with those who were disobedient because of her faith (Heb. 11:31).
• Abraham instructed his wife, Sarah, to mislead the Egyptians and say that she is his sister (Gen. 12:10). Abraham's story was strictly true – Sarah was his half sister – but intentionally misleading because it was designed to lead the Egyptians to believe that Sarah was not Abraham's wife for Abraham feared that they would kill him in order to take her, for she was very beautiful.

In the New Testament, Jesus refers to the Devil as the father of lies (John 8:44) and Paul commands Christians "Do not lie to one another" (Col. 3:9; cf. Lev. 19:11). In the Day of Judgement, unrepentant liars will be punished in the lake of fire. (Rev. 21:8; 21:27).

Augustine's taxonomy

St. Augustine by Carlo Crivelli

Augustine of Hippo wrote two books about lying: On Lying (De Mendacio) and Against Lying (Contra Mendacio). He describes each book in his later work, Retractions. Based on the location of De Mendacio in Retractions, it appears to have been written about AD 395. The first work, On Lying, begins: "Magna quæstio est de Mendacio" ("There is a great question about Lying"). From his text, it can be derived that St. Augustine divided lies into eight categories, listed in order of descending severity:

• Lies in religious teaching
• Lies that harm others and help no one
• Lies that harm others and help someone
• Lies told for the pleasure of lying
• Lies told to "please others in smooth discourse"
• Lies that harm no one and that help someone materially
• Lies that harm no one and that help someone spiritually
• Lies that harm no one and that protect someone from "bodily defilement"

Despite distinguishing between lies according to their external severity, Augustine maintains in both treatises that all lies, defined precisely as the external communication of what one does not hold to be internally true, are categorically sinful and therefore, ethically impermissible.

Augustine wrote that lies told in jest, or by someone who believes or opines the lie to be true are not, in fact, lies.

In Buddhism

The fourth of the five Buddhist precepts involves falsehood spoken or committed to by action. Avoiding other forms of wrong speech are also considered part of this precept, consisting of malicious speech, harsh speech, and gossip. A breach of the precept is considered more serious if the falsehood is motivated by an ulterior motive  (rather than, for example, "a small white lie"). The accompanying virtue is being honest and dependable, and involves honesty in work, truthfulness to others, loyalty to superiors, and gratitude to benefactors. In Buddhist texts, this precept is considered most important next to the first precept, because a lying person is regarded to have no shame, and therefore capable of many wrongs. Lying is not only to be avoided because it harms others, but also because it goes against the Buddhist ideal of finding the truth.

The fourth precept includes avoidance of lying and harmful speech. Some modern Buddhist teachers such as Thich Nhat Hanh interpret this to include avoiding spreading false news and uncertain information. Work that involves data manipulation, false advertising, or online scams can also be regarded as violations. Anthropologist Barend Terwiel [de] reports that among Thai Buddhists, the fourth precept also is seen to be broken when people insinuate, exaggerate, or speak abusively or deceitfully.

In Norse paganism

In Gestaþáttr, one of the sections within the Eddaic poem Hávamál, Odin states that it is advisable, when dealing with "a false foe who lies", to tell lies also.

In Zoroastrianism

Zoroaster teaches that there are two powers in the universe; Asha, which is truth, order, and that which is real, and Druj, which is "the Lie". Later on, the Lie became personified as Angra Mainyu, a figure similar to the Christian Devil, who was portrayed as the eternal opponent of Ahura Mazda (God).

Herodotus, in his mid-fifth-century BC account of Persian residents of the Pontus, reports that Persian youths, from their fifth year to their twentieth year, were instructed in three things – "to ride a horse, to draw a bow, and to speak the Truth". He further notes that: "The most disgraceful thing in the world [the Persians] think, is to tell a lie; the next worst, to owe a debt: because, among other reasons, the debtor is obliged to tell lies."

Darius I, imagined by a Greek painter, fourth century BCE

In Achaemenid Persia, the lie, drauga (in Avestan: druj), is considered to be a cardinal sin and it was punishable by death in some extreme cases. Tablets discovered by archaeologists in the 1930s at the site of Persepolis give us adequate evidence about the love and veneration for the culture of truth during the Achaemenian period. These tablets contain the names of ordinary Persians, mainly traders and warehouse-keepers. According to Stanley Insler of Yale University, as many as 72 names of officials and petty clerks found on these tablets contain the word truth. Thus, says Insler, we have Artapana, protector of truth, Artakama, lover of truth, Artamanah, truth-minded, Artafarnah, possessing splendour of truth, Artazusta, delighting in truth, Artastuna, pillar of truth, Artafrida, prospering the truth, and Artahunara, having nobility of truth.

It was Darius the Great who laid down the "ordinance of good regulations" during his reign. Darius' testimony about his constant battle against the Lie is found in the Behistun Inscription. He testifies: "I was not a lie-follower, I was not a doer of wrong ... According to righteousness I conducted myself. Neither to the weak or to the powerful did I do wrong. The man who cooperated with my house, him I rewarded well; who so did injury, him I punished well."

He asks Ahuramazda, God, to protect the country from "a (hostile) army, from famine, from the Lie".

Darius had his hands full dealing with large-scale rebellion which broke out throughout the empire. After fighting successfully with nine traitors in a year, Darius records his battles against them for posterity and tells us how it was the Lie that made them rebel against the empire. At the Behistun inscription, Darius says: "I smote them and took prisoner nine kings. One was Gaumata by name, a Magian; he lied; thus he said: I am Smerdis, the son of Cyrus ... One, Acina by name, an Elamite; he lied; thus he said: I am king in Elam ... One, Nidintu-Bel by name, a Babylonian; he lied; thus he said: I am Nebuchadnezzar, the son of Nabonidus. ... The Lie made them rebellious, so that these men deceived the people." Then advice to his son Xerxes, who is to succeed him as the great king: "Thou who shalt be king hereafter, protect yourself vigorously from the Lie; the man who shall be a lie-follower, him do thou punish well, if thus thou shall think. May my country be secure!"

 

Misinformation related to vaccination

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misinformation_related_to_vaccination 

Misinformation related to vaccination and immunization circulates in mass media and social media. Intentional spreading of false information and conspiracy theories have also been propagated by the general public and celebrities. Misinformation related to vaccination fuels vaccine hesitancy and thereby results in disease outbreaks. Although opposition to vaccination has existed for centuries, the internet and social media has recently facilitated the spread of vaccine-related misinformation. Unsubstantiated safety concerns related to vaccines are often presented as scientific information on the internet.

Extent

A survey by the Royal Society of Public Health found that 50% of the parents of children under age 5 regularly encountered misinformation related to vaccination on social media. On Twitter, bots were found to spread misinformation related to vaccine safety. Bots masquerade as legitimate users, thereby creating false equivalency that there are nearly equal number of individuals on both sides of the debate. The accounts created by bots also use compelling stories related to anti-vaccination as clickbait to drive up their revenue and expose users to malware.

An analysis reveals that anti-vaccine community absorbs individuals who were previously interested in alternative medicine or conspiracy theories. Another study showed that a predisposition to believe in conspiracy theories was found to negatively predict the intention of individuals to be vaccinated.

Spreading vaccine misinformation can lead to financial rewards where posts on social media can be monetized by asking for donations or fundraising for anti-vaccination causes.

List of popular misinformation

The World Health Organization has classified vaccine related misinformation into five topic areas. These are: threat of disease (vaccine preventable diseases are harmless), trust (questioning the trustworthiness of healthcare authorities who administer vaccines), alternative methods (such as alternative medicine to replace vaccination), effectiveness (vaccines do not work) and safety (vaccines have more risks than benefits).

Vaccination causes idiopathic illnesses

• Vaccines cause autism: The established scientific consensus is that there is no link between vaccines and autism. No ingredients in vaccines, including thiomersal, have been found to cause autism.
• Vaccines can cause the same disease that one is vaccinated against: A vaccine causing complete disease is extremely unlikely. In traditional vaccines, the virus is attenuated (weakened) and thus it is not possible to contract the disease, while in newer technologies like mRNA vaccines the vaccine does not contain the virus at all.
• Vaccines cause harmful side effects and even death: Vaccines are very safe. Most adverse events after vaccination are mild and temporary, such as sore throat or mild fever, which can be controlled by taking paracetamol after vaccination.

Alternative remedies to vaccination

Responding to misinformation, some may resort to complementary or alternative medicine as an alternative to vaccination. Those who believe in this narrative view vaccines as 'toxic and adulterating' while seeing alternative 'natural' methods as safe and effective. Some of the misinformation circulating around alternate remedies for vaccination include:

• Eating yoghurt cures human papillomavirus: Eating any natural product does not prevent or cure HPV.
• Homeopathy can be used as an alternative to protect against measles: Homeopathy has been shown to be ineffective against preventing measles.

Vaccination as genocide

Misinformation that forced vaccination could be used to "depopulate" the earth circulated in 2011 by misquoting Bill Gates. Vaccines have falsely been claimed to intervene with the genetic material and alter human DNA.

Vaccine components contain forbidden additives

Anti-vaxxers emphasize that the components in vaccines such as thiomersal and aluminum are capable for causing health hazards. Thiomersal is a harmless component in vaccines which is used to maintain its sterility, and there are no known adverse effects due to it. Aluminium is included in the vaccine as an adjuvant, and it has low toxicity even in large amounts. Formaldehyde included in some vaccines is in negligibly low quantities and it is harmless. Narratives that COVID-19 vaccines contain haram products were circulated in Muslim communities.

Vaccines are part of a governmental/pharmaceutical conspiracy

The Big Pharma conspiracy theory, that pharmaceutical companies operate for sinister purposes and against the public good, has been used in the context of vaccination.

Vaccine preventable diseases are harmless

There is a common misconception that vaccine-preventable diseases such as measles are harmless. However, measles remains a serious disease, and can cause severe complications or even death. Vaccination is the only way to protect against measles.

Personal anecdotes about harmed individuals

Personal anecdotes and sometimes false stories are circulated about vaccination. Misinformation has spread claiming that people died due to COVID-19 vaccination.

Vaccine preventable diseases have been eradicated

Vaccination has enabled the reduction of most vaccine-preventable diseases (e.g. Polio has been eradicated in every country except Afghanistan and Pakistan). However, some are still prevalent and even cause epidemics in some parts of the world. If the affected population is not protected by vaccination, the disease can quickly spread from country to country. Vaccines do not only protect the individual, but also lead to herd immunity if a sufficient number of people in the population have taken the vaccine.

Other conspiracy theories

Other conspiracy theories circulated on social media have included the false notion that polio is not a real disease and that the symptoms are actually due to DDT poisoning, and NASA is releasing balloons filled with chemicals that produce polio-like symptoms. A video shared more than 8,300 times on Facebook falsely claimed that a microchip planted in COVID-19 vaccination syringes "would give officials information on who has and has not been vaccinated" (COVID vaccines do not contain microchips).

Impact

Fueled by misinformation, anti-vaccination activism is on the rise on social media and in many countries. Research has shown that viewing a website containing vaccine misinformation for 5–10 minutes decreases a person's intention to vaccinate. A 2020 study found that "large proportions of the content about vaccines on popular social media sites are anti-vaccination messages." It further found that there is a significant relationship between joining vaccine hesitant groups on social media and openly casting doubts in public about vaccine safety, as well a substantial relationship between foreign disinformation campaigns and declining vaccination coverage.

In 2003, rumors about polio vaccines intensified vaccine hesitancy in Nigeria and led to a five-fold increase in the number of polio cases in the country over three years. A 2021 study found that misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines on social media "induced a decline in intent [to vaccinate] of 6.2 percentage points in the [United Kingdom] and 6.4 percentage points in the [United States] among those who said they would definitely accept a vaccine".

Measures against misinformation

Several governmental agencies, such as the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in the United States and National Health Service (NHS) in the United Kingdom have dedicated webpages for addressing vaccine related misinformation. Pinterest was one of the first social media platforms to surface only trustworthy information from reliable sources on their vaccine related searches back in 2019. In 2020, Facebook announced that it would no longer allow anti-vaccination advertisements on its platform. Facebook also said it would elevate posts from the World Health Organization and UNICEF in order to increase immunization rates through public health campaigns. Twitter announced that it would put a warning label on tweets containing disputed or unsubstantiated rumors about vaccination and require users to remove tweets that spread false information about vaccines. TikTok announced that it would start directing people to official health sources when they search for vaccine related information. By December 2020, YouTube had removed more than 700,000 videos containing misinformation related to COVID-19.

Research shows that science communicators should directly counter misinformation because of its negative influence on silent audience who are observing the vaccine debate, but not engaging in it. The refutations to vaccine related misinformation should be straightforward in order to avoid emphasising misinformation. It is useful to pair scientific evidence with stories that connect to the belief and value system of the audience.

While social media companies have taken recent steps to reduce the presence of vaccine misinformation on their platforms, misinformed users and their social groups remain. After repeated exposure, these individuals now hold misinformed mental models of the function, risk, and purpose of vaccines. The longer an individual holds misinformation, the more staunchly rooted it becomes in their mental model, making its correction and retraction all the more difficult. Over time, these models may become integral to a vaccine hesitant individual's worldview. People are likely to filter any new information they receive to fit their preexisting worldview – corrective vaccine facts are no exception to this motivated reasoning. Thus, by the time vaccine hesitant individuals arrive at the doctor's office, healthcare workers face an uphill battle. If they seek to change minds and maintain herd immunity against preventable diseases, they must do more than simply present facts about vaccines. Providers need communication strategies that effectively change minds and behavior.

Given the complexity of this problem, effective evidence-based strategies have yet to be identified. Interventions for parents/caregivers who make health decisions for their children are vital. In the United States, the CDC recommends at least 15 vaccinations during the first 18 years of life, given parental consent. This set includes the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine – the central immunization of concern for misinformed parents. Debunked research and celebrity anecdotes that falsely linked the MMR vaccine to autism still have a strong hold on parental behaviors In 15 states, MMR vaccination rates are below 90%. The necessity to counteract misinformation among parents is clear, but the pathway forward is not – researchers are still looking for answers.

Although many wish to provide families with as much corrective information as possible, this often has unintended consequences. One study in 2013 tested four separate interventions to correct MMR vaccine misinformation and promote parental behavioral change: (1) Provide information explaining lack of evidence that MMR causes autism. (2) Present textual information about the dangers of measles, mumps, and rubella. (3) Show images of children with measles, mumps and rubella. (4) Provide a dramatic written narrative about an infant who became deathly ill from measles. Before and after each intervention, researchers measured parents' belief in the vaccine/autism misperception, their intent to vaccinate future children, and their general risk perception of the vaccine. They found that none of the interventions increased parental intent to vaccinate.

Instead, the first intervention (1) reduced misperceptions about autism, but still decreased parents' intent to vaccinate future children. Notably, this effect was significant among parents who were already the most vaccine-hesitant. Nyhan et al. conclude that corrective information may backfire. Motivated reasoning could be the mechanism behind this finding – no matter how many facts are provided, parents still sift through them to selectively find those that support their worldview. While the corrective information did have an effect on a specific belief, ultimately vaccine-hesitant parents used this additional information to strengthen their original behavioral intent. Interventions three (3) and four (4) increased the vaccine/autism misperception and increased belief in serious vaccine side effects, respectively. The authors attribute this result to a potential danger priming effect – when pushed into a fearful state, parents misattribute this fear to the vaccine itself, rather than the diseases it prevents. In all cases, the facts included had little, if not counterproductive effect on future behaviors.

This work has important implications for future research. First, the study's findings revealed a disparity between beliefs and intentions – even as specific misperceptions are corrected, behavior may not change. Since reaching herd immunity for preventable diseases requires promoting a behavior – vaccination – it is important for future research to measure behavioral intent, rather than just beliefs. Second, it is imperative for all health messaging to be tested before its widespread use. We do not necessarily know the behavioral impacts of communication interventions – they may have unintended consequences on different groups. In the case of correcting vaccine misinformation and changing vaccination behaviors, much more research is still needed to identify effective communication strategies.