Dissecting Partisan Disinformation
I’ve recently been told that “the disinformation label is subjective.” What’s disinformation to one person is truth to another person. Examples provided were that when it’s said that “the US has an open border” then that’s false for Democrats and true for Republicans, the same as when trans issues come up. It’s only true that “men can be women and women can be men” for Democrats, while it’s false for Republicans. “Masks work” is true for Democrats, and false for Republicans. Thus if anything is labeled as “disinformation” by fact-checkers, then it’s simply a reflection of the bias of that fact checker.
In other words, truth is subjective. We could get into the philosophy about how all life is but a dream, but we’re going to take a more grounded approach here. Our baseline will be that certain truths are NOT subjective. Grass is green, water is wet, and COVID-19 is a real virus that really killed people. Words have universally agreed upon definitions which form the basis of human communication.
As we talk about definitions, let’s start with the word “disinformation.” It means false or misleading information that which is deliberately intended to deceive. It’s often used interchangeably with misinformation, which is false or misleading information as well — without the implication that there’s a deliberate intention to deceive. If you see an animal run by your window and tell your spouse you just saw a cat, then later find out it was a dog, that’s an example of misinformation because you were incorrect but it wasn’t disinformation because you didn’t know you were incorrect.
Disinformation can also be 100% truthful, but still purposely misleading. There have been safety campaigns sharing the dangers of "dihydrogen oxide”, it’s been found in your local water pipes! it’s fatal if inhaled! and it can produce blistering vapors! All of that is true. Because dihydrogen oxide is… water. So yes, it’s found in water pipes, if you inhale it you can drown, and if you boil it the vapors can burn you. None of which means it needs to be banned, because despite all that we still need water to live.
So then, how is saying that “the US has an open border” disinformation? Well first, the phrase “open border” has a predefined definition. An open border is a border that enables free movement of people and/or goods between jurisdictions with no restrictions on movement. One could drive from California to Florida without having to go through State Border Security, because contiguous states share open borders. The US does enforce legal restrictions of people and goods traveling across its international borders, thus the US does not have an open border. So from a perspective of following the definitions, this is not a subjective point. The US either does or doesn’t have an open border, it does not, therefore anyone saying it does is incorrect or trying to be misleading.
What then is the partisan argument that the “open border” message is NOT disinformation? To get there one has to provide an entirely new definition for the phrase, such as “there are a record high number of border encounters and apprehensions.” This, of course, means the exact opposite as the actual definition, as those are examples of restrictions on movement being enforced. The goal here isn’t just to be contrary, it’s to lead people to a very specific conclusion: “The other party has weak immigration/border security policies.” The goal is to get people to vote for you and your party, and not the other party, but it isn’t based on truth — it’s based on deception.
If you simply said “My party has better immigration/border security policies” that wouldn’t be disinformation, you are clearly sharing your opinion. If one thing is better or worse than another thing IS subjective. However, stating that your policies are better then leads to a discussion of HOW those policies are better, a much harder discussion than “we’re better than they are, na na-na boo-boo.”
Saying that “men can be women and women can be men” is disinformation that has a more sinister goal, that of spreading prejudice. This time the method isn’t redefining something, it’s completely changing the topic. When the phrase comes up in political conversations it’s talking about transgender people, thus the topic is that gender is a social construct. The topic is sociology (dealing with societies) and psychology (who we are). The disinformation here starts with changing the topic to chromosomes and biology (What is a woman?). While it may start differently, the goal is similar — to mislead people to a specific conclusion — not to accept trans people. This type of disinformation has another name as well, a political dog whistle, which is to lead people to a prejudice conclusion without saying anything inherently prejudice. An older example of a dog whistle would be blaming things on “international bankers” which is code for blaming things on Jewish people. The most used political dog whistle is probably the phrase “family values.” When most people hear that phrase they think of something positive, but when a politician uses that phrase they may be stating that they support prejudices and are against abortion, against homosexuality, against trans people and against any family structure that isn’t the nuclear family.
Saying that “Masks work” or “Vaccines work” is disinformation is abandoning the nuances of science in favor of a binary perspective. It’s often accompanied with “Follow the science,” to counter the obvious fact that it’s abandoning science entirety. In this case saying “masks don’t work” isn’t an outright lie, such as saying we have open borders, and it’s not changing the field of science, like saying that men can’t become women, it’s deliberately narrowing the scope to the point of nonsense. Medical science rarely has absolutes. Drugs work differently on people, situations are different, viruses behave differently, a little of something is good for you while too much is bad for you, and some measures reduce risks vs eliminating them totally. If I were to tell you that wearing a cloth mask would 100% prevent you from catching a virus (such as COVID-19) I would be lying. Because that’s not how masks work. A mask reduces risk of spreading a virus — primarily to OTHER people, by filtering the air you exhale and capturing moisture droplets. The disinformation campaign against masks says that masks don’t work because they don’t do something which no one claims they do. The same goes for vaccines, the way they work is nuanced so you can’t reduce it to “they work” or “they don’t work” based on if they prevent infection 100% of the time with zero side effects.
While the disinformation label can be applied inaccurately, in general, no disinformation isn’t subjective. It is a message being shared to mislead others to reach certain conclusions rather than stating those conclusions outright. You could simply say “We have better border security policies” without using disinformation. You could simply say “I hate trans people/homosexuals/abortions” without using disinformation. And you could simply say “I don’t want to wear a mask, because I don’t think they help enough to warrant my inconvenience” without using disinformation. So sharing disinformation is a choice, a way of trying to convince people of something you don’t want to say directly. The only thing subjective about it is if you are okay deceiving people over convincing them honestly.
