Misinformation vs Disinformation

What Is the Difference Between Misinformation and Disinformation

Misinformation is false or misleading information shared by someone who believes it is true. Disinformation is false information created or spread on purpose, to deceive people or to cause harm. The difference is intent, so the same false claim can be disinformation for the person who invented it and misinformation for the neighbor who reposts it in good faith.

The words describe a person’s state of mind, which is why they are hard to apply. You can usually check whether a claim is true. Whether the person who shared it knew better takes evidence, and sometimes a court.

A Three-Question Test

Wardle and Hossein Derakhshan laid out the three types in a 2017 report for the Council of Europe, and many libraries and newsrooms now use their terms. The categories come down to three questions, asked in order.

How to tell misinformation, disinformation and malinformation apart

1. 1 Question 1 Is it false or misleading? Check the claim against the original record: the document, the data, the full video. If it is true and in context, it is not misinformation or disinformation.
2. 2 Question 2 Did the person sharing it know? If they believed it, it is misinformation. If they knew it was false, or made it up, it is disinformation.
3. 3 Question 3 Is true information being used to harm? Accurate but private or stripped of context, and shared to damage someone, is malinformation.

Source: Claire Wardle and Hossein Derakhshan, Information Disorder, Council of Europe (2017); Wardle, The Verification Handbook.

Each type needs a different response. Misinformation is usually corrected by the person who shared it, once they see better evidence. Disinformation is designed to survive correction, so exposing who made it and why matters more than debating the claim.

Three Cases on the Record

These cases come from court rulings and government findings, not from anyone’s opinion about who is lying.

A court found the claims false, and left knowledge to a jury. In US Dominion v. Fox News Network, Judge Eric Davis of the Delaware Superior Court ruled on March 31, 2023 that “the evidence developed in this civil proceeding demonstrated that [it] is CRYSTAL clear that none of the statements relating to Dominion about the 2020 election are true.” He did not decide whether anyone at Fox acted with actual malice: “[T]hese are genuine issues of material fact and therefore must be determined by a jury,” he wrote (First Amendment Watch). Fox settled for $787.5 million on April 18 and acknowledged the court’s rulings finding “certain claims about Dominion to be false” (CNN). The case shows why the second question in the test is the hard one. Falsity was settled in writing, but knowledge never was.

A foreign government built fake newspapers. On March 20, 2024, the Treasury Department sanctioned two Russian companies, the Social Design Agency and Structura, for running “a sprawling network of over 60 websites that impersonated legitimate news organizations” for the Russian government. The sites used “misleading social media accounts to amplify the content,” and even copied the real outlets’ cookie pages (U.S. Treasury). The operators were spreading disinformation. An American who shared one of those articles believing it was real was spreading misinformation.

True documents used as a weapon. In 2016, Russian military intelligence (the GRU) stole emails from Democratic officials. The bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee found that the GRU “quickly integrated the materials it stole during its hacking operation into an influence operation” that used two fake personas, Guccifer 2.0 and DCLeaks, to spread them (Senate Intelligence Committee, Volume 5). Many of the documents were genuine. The harm came from who took them and how they were released, which is what makes this malinformation.

Why False Claims Spread Faster Than Corrections

The largest study of the question tracked about 126,000 news stories that about 3 million people spread on Twitter from 2006 to 2017. Soroush Vosoughi, Deb Roy and Sinan Aral of MIT found that falsehood “diffused significantly farther, faster, deeper, and more broadly than the truth.” They suggested that novelty may explain part of the difference, since false stories drew more replies showing surprise and disgust (Science; MIT).

People, not bots, did most of the spreading.

When the researchers removed the automated accounts from their data, the gap between false and true news remained. “When we removed all of the bots in our dataset, [the] differences between the spread of false and true news stood,” Vosoughi said (MIT). That puts the most practical defense in the hands of ordinary people deciding what to share.

How to Check a Claim With Lateral Reading

Lateral reading means leaving a website to find out who is behind it, instead of studying the site itself. Stanford researchers Sam Wineburg and Sarah McGrew watched 10 historians, 10 professional fact-checkers and 25 Stanford students evaluate real websites. The historians and students “often fell victim to easily manipulated features of websites, such as official-looking logos and domain names.” The fact-checkers opened new tabs to see what others said about the source, and “arrived at more warranted conclusions in a fraction of the time” (Teachers College Record). Wineburg and colleagues later tested lateral-reading lessons in a district-wide field study of high school government classes (Journal of Educational Psychology).

Check what is in front of you

Open the one that matches what you are looking at. None of these takes more than a few minutes.

A headline or article from a site I do not know

1. Leave the page. Search the outlet's name in a new tab and see who owns it and what others say about it.
2. Check the web address letter by letter. Fake sites copy real outlets' designs but use a different domain.
3. Search the headline's main claim. If only one site is reporting something big, wait.

This is the lateral reading habit that fact-checkers use. It is how the fake newspapers in the Treasury case could be caught.

A photo or a video

1. Run a reverse image search (Google Lens, Bing Visual Search or TinEye) to find where the image first appeared.
2. Look for the earliest version. Old photos are often recirculated with new captions.
3. For a video clip, look for the full, uncut version before trusting a short excerpt.

A real image with a false caption is hard to catch, because the picture itself checks out.

A statistic or a quote

1. Find the original document: the report, the data table, the transcript or the court ruling.
2. Check the date and what exactly was measured. A true number from a different year or group can mislead.
3. For a quote, search for it in quotation marks and find the full remarks.

Most numbers travel far from their source. The original document is usually one search away.

Something that makes me angry or afraid

1. Pause before sharing. Strong emotion is a signal to check, not a reason to hurry.
2. Ask who benefits if you believe it and share it.
3. If you already shared something false, delete it and say so. A short correction from you reaches the same people.

The MIT researchers found that false news drew more surprise and disgust than true news. Checking before you share is the step you control.

Warning people in advance also works. In seven preregistered studies, including a field test with 22,632 YouTube users, Jon Roozenbeek, Sander van der Linden and colleagues found that short videos explaining common manipulation tricks, such as false dichotomies and scapegoating, improved people’s ability to spot them. The effect held “across the political spectrum” (Science Advances). Researchers call this prebunking.

Who Counters Disinformation Now

The federal offices that tracked foreign disinformation were closed or cut in 2025, and the largest social network ended its U.S. fact-checking program. Each change is listed here with its status.

Federal and Platform Efforts Against False Information

As of September 26, 2026

• Executive Order 14149, "Restoring Freedom of Speech and Ending Federal Censorship" Agency action, executive order

  Signed January 20, 2025. Makes it federal policy that no federal officer, employee or agent engages in conduct that would "unconstitutionally abridge the free speech of any American citizen." (source)

• Meta third-party fact-checking in the U.S. Ended, replaced by Community Notes

  Meta announced on January 7, 2025 that it would end the U.S. program and move to user-written Community Notes. (source)

• CISA mis- and disinformation staff Agency action, placed on leave

  A DHS spokesperson confirmed in February 2025 that staff focused on countering disinformation and influence operations were put on administrative leave. (source)

• State Department office against foreign disinformation (formerly the Global Engagement Center) Ended

  Secretary Rubio announced its closure on April 16, 2025, saying it had spent millions "to actively silence and censor the voices of Americans." (source)

• Foreign Malign Influence Center, Office of the Director of National Intelligence Agency action, curtailed

  Sens. Warner and Padilla wrote on September 15, 2025 that the administration had "curtailed" the congressionally authorized center. (source)

• CISA election security support for the 2026 midterms Agency action, plan released, program proposed for elimination

  CISA released its 2026 Election Infrastructure Security Plan on September 24, 2026, naming its 10 regional directors as election security advisers. The administration's fiscal 2027 budget would eliminate CISA's election security program. (source)

• Government contact with platforms about content (Murthy v. Missouri) Final ruling, no standing

  The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 on June 26, 2024 that the challengers lacked standing, without deciding whether officials had coerced the platforms. (source)

Some of this work continues outside government. Newsroom fact-checkers and university researchers still publish corrections and studies. What changed is that the federal offices that warned the public about foreign influence operations through 2024 were closed or cut.

Is Disinformation Illegal

In most cases, no. The Supreme Court has held that false statements are not automatically outside the First Amendment. In United States v. Alvarez (2012), which struck down a law against lying about military medals, Justice Anthony Kennedy’s plurality opinion said that “falsity alone may not suffice to bring the speech outside the First Amendment” (Cornell LII).

Defamation is the main exception, and it turns on the same question as the test above: what the speaker knew. Under New York Times v. Sullivan (1964), a public official can win damages for a false statement only by proving “actual malice,” meaning it was made “with knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not” (Cornell LII). That is why the Dominion case turned on what people at Fox knew, and why it settled before a jury answered. The Alvarez plurality also lists fraud and true threats among the kinds of false or harmful speech the First Amendment does not protect.

The Honest Disagreement

People who agree that disinformation is harmful disagree sharply about who should respond to it.

The case against government involvement. In Murthy v. Missouri, states and individual users argued that federal officials pressured platforms to remove posts about COVID-19 and elections. The Court’s majority, in an opinion by Justice Amy Coney Barrett, found that “the platforms had independent incentives to moderate content and often exercised their own judgment,” and reversed the appeals court’s ruling, which had upheld an injunction against officials, because the challengers lacked standing. Justice Samuel Alito, joined by Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch, dissented: if the lower courts read the record correctly, “this is one of the most important free speech cases to reach this Court in years” (Supreme Court). The 2025 executive order and the State Department closure rest on the same concern, that labeling speech “misinformation” can become a tool for silencing views officials dislike.

The case for a response. Researchers point to evidence that false claims spread faster than corrections and that foreign governments run organized campaigns, as Treasury and the Senate Intelligence Committee documented. The public’s views have moved too.

Support for restricting false information online has grown since 2018, most of all among Democrats.

2018 2023

1. Tech companies 56% → 65% (+9 pts)
2. The federal government 39% → 55% (+16 pts)

0%25%50%75%100%

Share of U.S. adults who say each should take steps to restrict false information online

Group	2018	2023	Change
Tech companies	56%	65%	+9 pts
The federal government	39%	55%	+16 pts

Source: Pew Research Center, survey of 5,115 U.S. adults, June 5-11, 2023.

The split is partisan. In 2023, 70% of Democrats supported government steps against false information, up from 40% in 2018, while 39% of Republicans did, about the same as five years earlier (Pew Research Center). Both sides of the debate agree on one tool that involves no government at all: people checking before they share.

What the Misinformation Label Leaves Out

• Not every wrong claim is misinformation. A prediction that turned out wrong, or a reasonable reading of evidence that later changed, is ordinary error. The labels fit claims that were false when they were made.
• Opinion is not misinformation. A view you disagree with is a disagreement. The test applies to factual claims that can be checked.
• Satire is not misinformation until someone shares it as real. The joke is fine. The problem starts when it loses its label.
• Intent is often unknowable. Most of the time you can check whether a claim is true but not whether the person who shared it knew. When in doubt, correct the claim and leave the motive out.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is misinformation the same as fake news?

Not quite. “Fake news” gets applied to every kind of false or misleading content, though most of it does not pose as news at all. Researcher Claire Wardle calls the phrase inadequate and notes that politicians use it to attack the news media, which is why she coined “information disorder” instead.

What is an example of misinformation?

A real photo shared with a false caption by someone who believes the caption. The photo itself checks out, which makes the claim convincing.

Is it a crime to share false information?

Usually not. The Supreme Court has said there is no general First Amendment exception for false statements. Sharing false information can lead to liability when it defames a person or is part of a fraud, and some false statements are crimes, such as lying to federal officials, perjury, or falsely claiming to speak for the government.

How do I correct someone without starting a fight?

Share the original source instead of arguing about the claim, and make it easy for them to change their mind. Ask what would change their view, and start there.

What You Can Do

1. Check before you share. Use lateral reading: open a new tab and look up the source before you believe it. The situations above walk through a headline, a photo, a statistic and an emotional post.

2. Correct your own mistakes in public. If you shared something false, delete it and post the correction where the same people will see it.

3. Report impersonation sites. When a page copies a real news outlet’s design, report it to the platform and tell the real outlet. Impersonation was the core of the Russian network Treasury sanctioned.

4. Ask your members of Congress about foreign influence tracking. The federal offices that tracked foreign disinformation before elections were closed or cut in 2025. Ask your representative and senators who now warns the public about foreign operations before the November 3, 2026 election. Our letter-writing guide walks through it.

5. Learn the related tactics. Organized campaigns often combine false claims with fake grassroots groups, state propaganda, and rhetoric that points followers at a target, which researchers call stochastic terrorism.