Disinformation

For other uses, see Disinformation (disambiguation).

Disinformation is a preemptive dissemination of deliberately misleading information announced publicly or leaked by a government, intelligence agency, corporation or other entity to prevent a target audience from realising accurate conclusions. Unlike misinformation, which is also a form of wrong information, disinformation is produced by people who deliberately intend to deceive their audience into believing anything other than truth. Disinformation bears a unique psychological tenacity in that if successful, the victims accept it as fact. Upon later revelation of truth, the affected individuals may be prone to denial, experiencing varying degrees of Cognitive dissonance.

A group with secured interests may plant disinformation in news, reports, in press releases, in entertainment, in public statements or in practically any other routine, occasional or unusual communique. Disinformation can also be leaked, or covertly released to a source who can be trusted to repeat the false information. Unlike traditional propaganda and Big Lie techniques designed to engage emotional support, disinformation is designed to manipulate the audience at the rational level by either discrediting the conflicting information or supporting the false conclusions.

A common disinformation tactic is to mix some truth and observation with false conclusions and lies, or to reveal part of the truth while presenting it as the whole (a limited hangout).

The Cold War made disinformation a recognized military and political tactic. Military disinformation techniques were described by Vladimir Volkoff. Disinformation techniques may also be found in commerce and government, used by one group to try to undermine the position of a competitor or consumer. Cooking-the-books might be considered a disinformation strategy that led to the Sarbanes-Oxley Act.

"Disinformation is a fact of life in politics. Those who practice politics for a living call it "spin." Honest people call it lying through your teeth." - Doug Thompson

Examples of disinformation

A classic example of disinformation was during the World War II, preceding the D-Day landings, in what would be known as Operation Fortitude. British intelligence convinced the German Armed Forces that a much larger invasion force was about to cross the English Channel from Kent, England. In reality, the Normandy landings were the main attempt at establishing a beachhead, made easier by the German Command\'s reluctance to commit its armies.

An example of CIA disinformation was a pornographic movie made in the 1960s with an actor pretending to be President Sukarno of Indonesia. It was meant to undermine Mr. Sukarno with Muslims.Daniel Schorr, "Official US deception: Can it be trusted?", Christian Science Monitor, March 1 2002; retrieved on February 22, 2007

When the Central Intelligence Agency learned of Soviet industrial espionage in the Farewell Dossier, they used disinformation to sabotage the Soviet economy using that stolen information, such as a logic bomb in stolen oil pipeline software to cause a massive explosion in the system.

In 1986, national security adviser John Poindexter wrote for President Ronald Reagan a "disinformation program" aimed at destabilizing Libya\'s Colonel Muammar al-Gaddafi by planting reports in the foreign press about an impending conflict between the two countries. However, the false information eventually reached The Wall Street Journal—a phenomenon known in the trade as blowback.

FUD (Fear, uncertainty and doubt) is a good example from business that relates to marketing techniques. Kenneth Lay\'s appeal about the value of Enron stock may be another example.

On August 24, 2007, ninemsn Australia reported the Australian Government\'s Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet and Department of Defence making upwards of 5,126 edits to Wikipedia articles about John Howard, the 9/11 Truth Movement, and Vietnam War-era Pentagon Papers. The article was based on information taken from the website Wikiscanner. The article stated the Prime Minister\'s "departmental staff have been caught editing Wikipedia to remove details that might be damaging to the government".PM\'s staff sanitise Wikipedia, AAP ninemsn Australia, August 24, 2007

References

See also

• Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt (FUD)
• Information warfare
• Vladimir Volkoff
• Black propaganda
• Active measures
• Truthiness
• Wikiality

External links

• Crash Course in KGB/SVR/FSB Disinformation and Active Measures - by The Centre for Counterintelligence and Security Studies, USA
• PM\'s staff sanitise Wikipedia - from ninemsn Australia
• Disinformation - a learning resource from the British Library including an interactive movie and activities

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from Wikipedia