On Conceptual Disinformation

Abstract Disinformation is widespread and harmful. This is common knowledge. It is also more widely spread than we think: disinformation is not, as commonly assumed, false content (misinformation) spread with the intention, or function to mislead. Disinformation campaigns, when cleverly done, are not operating with false content: we are often too clever to fall for blunt falsehoods. Most of us, however, are much more vulnerable to subtly misleading content. Furthermore, as disinformation spread by convinced conspiracy theorists and black-box artificial intelligences shows, neither the intention nor the function to mislead is required for disinformation. This chapter discusses an important variety of disinformation that remains underexplored, and thus flies below the radar of extant disinformation tracking efforts: conceptual disinformation. We build on our view of conceptual ignorance to show that conceptual disinformation is achieved via increasing the audience’s degree of conceptual ignorance. Conceptual disinformation detaches us from meanings.