Misinformation

Misinformation is incorrect or misleading information. Unlike disinformation, which is made on purpose to deceive, misinformation often spreads without anyone meaning to harm. It can happen because of a lack of knowledge, a simple mistake, or just misunderstanding something. This kind of wrong information can be incomplete, misleading, or completely false.

Social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and X make it easy for misinformation to spread very quickly. In January 2024, the World Economic Forum said that misinformation and disinformation are among the biggest risks to the world because they can change what people believe about important topics like communities, politics, and medicine.

Sometimes, rules made to fight misinformation can also limit what journalists can report or what people can say freely. Sadly, in some countries, these rules have been used to restrict media freedom and even put journalists in prison.

Terminology

People use different words to talk about wrong or harmful information. Misinformation is false information that isn’t shared to hurt anyone on purpose. It often happens because someone doesn’t know the facts or makes a mistake.

Disinformation is when someone shares false information on purpose to trick people. This can hurt others and make it hard for people to trust what they hear.

There is also malinformation, which is true information shared to cause harm, like sharing someone’s private details to change how people think about them. Sometimes it’s hard to tell if someone is sharing misinformation or disinformation because we can’t always know their intentions.

Rumors are stories that no one knows are true or false and have no clear source. These words might mean slightly different things depending on where you are in the world.

Malinformation Disinformation Rumors

History

Misinformation means sharing incorrect or misleading information. Long ago, people spread false stories to hurt political rivals in places like Italy and France. During big events, like when Spain fought England, wrong reports were shared to influence important decisions.

As new ways to share news developed, such as television and radio, misinformation spread more easily. The invention of the internet made it even easier for false information to travel quickly. For example, during the COVID-19 pandemic, many people shared wrong ideas about treatments and vaccines on social media, which led some to make unsafe choices. This shows how important it is to check facts before sharing information.

The first big made-up story was the Great Moon Hoax in 1835, where a newspaper claimed to have found life on the Moon. Even today, during elections and health crises, misinformation can affect many people. During the 2016 U.S. presidential election, false news spread widely on social media, and many people believed it to be true.

COVID-19 misinformation

Main article: COVID-19 misinformation

Misinformation was a big problem during the COVID-19 pandemic. Social media helped spread wrong ideas about symptoms, treatments, and long-term effects. This led some people to avoid vaccines or ignore health guidelines. Studies showed that seeing false information about vaccines made people less likely to get vaccinated. Some people even made money by sharing these false stories online.

Research

See also: Disinformation research

Much research on how to correct incorrect or misleading information has focused on fact-checking. However, this can be challenging because people may hold onto these beliefs even when shown the facts. Researchers also study what makes people more likely to believe such information. Emotions play a role, as people may trust information more if it feels right to them. Social media makes information easy to share and access, connecting many people at once. With advances in technology, news often spreads quickly online, and over half of adults in the US get some news from social media.

Causes

Several factors lead to people believing incorrect information. These include individual skills in spotting false news, personal beliefs, and emotions. Group dynamics also matter, as people often trust those similar to themselves, creating echo chambers where similar ideas are repeated. Society-wide trends like political divides, economic issues, and less trust in experts also play a role. Online platforms have made it easier for false information to spread fast, often because it is more emotional or sensational. As more people choose their own news sources, they may pick ones that match their views, increasing the chance of being misinformed. Even trusted news sources can sometimes share unverified stories in the fast-paced 24 hour news cycle. Images or videos shared with false claims can also make them seem more believable.

Identification

There are ways to reduce the impact of incorrect information. One way is to check the source of the information and ask if it is trustworthy. It helps to look for other reliable sources that cover the same story. The SIFT Method teaches four steps: Stop to think, Investigate the source, Find better coverage, and Trace claims back to where they started. This can help see if important details are missing or if the source might not be reliable.

Factors influencing susceptibility to misinformation

Different factors like age, political views, and how social media algorithms work can affect how likely someone is to believe false information. Older adults might be more prone to believing misinformation because of changes in memory or less experience with online information. They may also trust information shared by friends or family online, even if it is not accurate. Political views can also shape what information a person accepts, as people often favor information that matches their beliefs.

AI contribution to the problem and aid in combatting

The rise of Artificial intelligence has created new kinds of false information. AI can change images, videos, and audio to make fake content that looks real. This is called synthetic media and it can be used to spread misleading news. For example, during a firestorm in California in 2025, AI-created images showed the Hollywood Sign on fire, even though it was not. In another case, AI was used to create a fake video of a public figure during an earthquake in Japan in 2025. While AI can create false content, it can also help detect and fight misinformation. Tools can sometimes tell if an image or video is made by AI, though this gets harder as the technology improves.

Countermeasures

Correcting wrong or misleading information is important. Factors that help a correction work well include matching the person’s beliefs, repeating the correction, and having a trusted source deliver it. Corrections are less effective if the wrong information comes from a trusted source, is repeated before correction, or if there is a delay between hearing the wrong information and seeing the correction.

Websites like FactCheck.org help people tell fact from fiction, especially with viral stories. Some sites focus on specific topics, like climate change. Social media platforms use tools to flag false information and provide links to trusted fact-checking sites.

One way to fight misinformation is by using groups of people to identify and label false information, similar to how Wikipedia works. This can be faster and more complete than professional fact-checking alone. For this to work well, people need to trust the group giving the facts, the correction needs to challenge their existing beliefs, and a diverse group of people is needed.

When talking to someone about misinformation, sharing facts directly often doesn’t work well. It can help to ask questions that make them think about why they believe something. Being kind and understanding keeps the conversation going.

Before people encounter wrong information, some methods aim to “protect” them by showing how misinformation works and common tricks used to spread it. This can help people recognize false information later.

Other ideas to fight misinformation include using technology to detect false content, better tools to check the source of information, and teaching people how to find and evaluate information well. Learning about media and information is important for everyone.

AI can help by checking facts in real time, spotting fake audio and video, and teaching people about information and media literacy.

Even with corrections, wrong information can stick around. This can happen if the corrections don’t reach the right people or if people see the wrong information again later. Most experts think that corrections usually help and rarely make beliefs worse, though they might not work for everyone.

Online misinformation

Further information: Health information on the Internet § Social media

In recent years, many people have noticed that wrong or confusing information is showing up a lot online. Almost everyone in the world can use the Internet now. Social media websites and apps can help spread this bad information. For example, when people share something without checking if it’s true, it can cause problems. Websites like Google, Facebook, and Yahoo News show us news based on what they think we like, which can sometimes mean we see false information.

Social media has been blamed for sharing things that aren’t true, like made-up stories or old rumors. This can make people feel worried or confused, especially during big events. Some studies show that one in ten Americans has felt bad because of false information they saw online. Sharing false information can also make it hard to find the facts we need.

On social media

Pew Research found that about one in four American adults admitted to sharing false information on social media.

In the Information Age, social networking sites have become big places where false information, fake news, and tricky messages spread. These sites have tried to change their systems to stop fake news, but it’s still a problem.

Pictures are a big way false information spreads on social media, but this isn’t talked about much in research. This creates a gap in what we know about how images compared to other types of posts can mislead people.

Spread

Social media makes it easy to share false information. People share it for many reasons, like to start a conversation, because they think it’s interesting, or to share their opinion. Scientists use computer programs to study how false beliefs move through groups of people. One way they study this is called epistemic network analysis.

Researchers worry that false information on social media is becoming hard to stop. It has been seen that false information and tricky messages appear again and again on these sites.^{[citation needed]}

False information spread by bots is hard for social media to stop. Websites like Facebook have systems that can help spread false information among groups of people.

Social causes and echo chambers

False information often spreads when people share posts from their friends or pages they follow. These posts come from people they trust, so they believe them more easily.

People often follow others who think like them, creating echo chambers and filter bubbles. This makes it hard to fight untrue ideas because people only see what agrees with them. Some say this leads to a lack of shared facts. Research shows that false information can spread faster in these echo chambers because they start a chain reaction.

False information might be shared on purpose to cause worry or trick people. Computational Propaganda groups use both tricky messages and false information. Rumors, whether meant to harm or not, can be shared without the poster knowing.^{[citation needed]} Sometimes people know something is proven true but still refuse to believe it.

Lack of regulation

False information spreads faster on social media than on traditional media because there are no rules to check posts before they go online. This means speed is more important than getting facts right. Because there’s no need for editors or fact-checkers, wrong or misleading posts can go everywhere before anyone notices.

Social media lets people share information quickly without anyone checking it first. The way these sites work, with systems that show content that gets a lot of reactions, helps false information spread because exciting or emotional posts get more attention.

The problem with false information is getting worse because younger people use social media more than news from journalists.

Lack of peer review

Because the Internet lets anyone post anything, people can share content without anyone checking it, like how books in libraries are checked by editors. Online, posts can go up right away without proof or review. This means false information can appear and spread quickly on the Internet.

Countermeasures

Fighting false information on social media is hard because:

• There are so many sources of false information that it’s hard to know what to trust.
• Social media often links to arguments about beliefs, which mixes false information with strong feelings.
• Echo chambers create groups where everyone thinks the same, pushing ideas to extremes.

Even with many people, social media might help fix false information because there are experts and lots of users who can talk about many subjects.

Journalists are sometimes blamed for spreading false information on social media, but studies show they also help by correcting and denying rumors.

By platform

Misinformation on TikTok

A report by NewsGuard found that about 20% of videos on TikTok about certain topics were false information, especially among younger users. TikTok’s style of short, fast videos makes people scroll quickly without checking facts. Content that feels personal or relatable can seem true even when it’s not, making false claims easy to believe and share. During the pandemic, TikTok had many videos with unproven cures and conspiracy theories. TikTok’s system shows content based on what gets watched and liked, which can accidentally show false information quickly.

Misinformation on Facebook

A study found that Facebook users were more likely to click on false information than true facts. The most common reason people shared false information was because they wanted to talk about it socially, not because they believed it.

Facebook has been watched closely for spreading false information, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. Some reports said Facebook showed pages with health misinformation. For example, if someone liked a page against vaccines, Facebook would show more pages like that. Facebook also had problems with not removing false information, which some said led to deaths from COVID-19.

Facebook said there were up to 60 million troll bots sharing false information, and they tried to stop it, which helped a bit, but false information is still there. Older adults, over 65, were seven times more likely to share fake news than younger adults aged 18–29.

Misinformation on Twitter

Main articles: Twitter under Elon Musk § Misinformation and disinformation, and Community Notes

Twitter is a big place for political fake news. 80% of fake news comes from just 0.1% of users, called “super-sharers”. Older, more conservative users are also more likely to share fake news. Another source of false information on Twitter are bot accounts, especially about climate change. Bots speed up both true and fake news. A 2018 study found that false information spread faster, farther, deeper, and more widely than true information. A study watched thirteen rumors on Twitter and found that eleven of them appeared again later.

A social media app called Parler caused problems too. After the January 6 United States Capitol attack, some right-wing users moved to Parler and used it to plan more illegal activities. Google and Apple removed the app from their stores. Parler has been a place where lots of false information and biased views spread, leading to more political problems.

Misinformation on Telegram

Telegram has been accused of helping create and spread false information because it has few rules and no fact-checking tools.

Misinformation on YouTube

Impact

The Liar's Dividend happens when people worry so much about fake information, like videos made with computers, that they start doubting real news too. For example, a leader might say a real video showing something embarrassing is fake, just to make people doubt it. This can make people trust even good sources less.

Misinformation can affect many parts of life. It can make it hard to know what is true, whether we hear it in conversations, read it online, or see it in the news. This can confuse people about important issues and shape their opinions and decisions.

In politics, misinformation can change elections and policies. People who spread false information can sound very sure of themselves, making others believe them. For example, during the 2016 UK European Union membership referendum, a campaign claimed leaving the EU would save a lot of money for the British National Health Service. Many people believed this, even though it was later shown to be misleading. False political news can spread very fast online and influence many people.

Companies can also use misinformation to change people's beliefs. For example, in the past, some tobacco companies spread false information to make people doubt studies linking smoking to lung cancer.

In medicine, misinformation can be very dangerous. For example, false ideas about vaccines or using herbs instead of proper medicine can put people's health at risk. During the COVID-19 pandemic, misinformation caused confusion and fear, and wrong ideas about safety measures could make people less safe.

Some researchers are working to reduce misinformation online. They study it in many subjects, like sociology and political science. However, some critics say these studies have problems, like not being clear enough or having too much influence on public policy.

Censorship accusations

Social media sites like Facebook and Twitter have sometimes been asked to remove posts that they think contain wrong or misleading information. Some people say this is unfair and stops people from sharing different opinions, especially about government rules.

For example, in 2020, a video claimed a certain medicine could cure COVID-19, but experts said this was not true. The video was shared many times before the sites removed it. Another case happened before the 2020 election when a story about a political family was shared. Some said the sites removed it to control what people could see, but later it was found that some of the information might have been true.