Receipt the Compiler: Propaganda as Hidden Epistemic Policy and the Architecture of Legible Memory

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Authors: James Beck
Cited by: 5

Abstract

Propaganda is conventionally understood as the injection of false content into public discourse. This framing is insufficiently precise. The primary attack surface of effective propaganda is not the data layer but the policy layer: the rules governing how evidence is integrated into public memory. We formalize this using a receipted semantic factor graph in which event nodes, receipt nodes, frame nodes, policy nodes, and decision nodes are explicitly typed and separately maintained. Retrospective reinterpretation — semantic retrocausality — is shown to be a normal and necessary feature of any belief-revision system operating over time. We define an epistemic governor as a set of typed constraints requiring that all updates to the semantic graph produce auditable receipts. The counter-propaganda move is not better evidence; it is legible epistemic policy.

Fields of Study & Subjects

Misinformation and Its Impacts Logic Reasoning and Knowledge Wikis in Education and Collaboration

Publication details

Journal / source
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
Publication date
2 March 2026
Document type
Preprint