‘Misinformation’ Means Whatever the Media Don’t Like, Want Censored

In the age of COVID, it’s hard to get through a full hour of TV news without hearing somebody talk about the worrying rise of ”disinformation.” Unfortunately, media’s definition of misinformation includes things that may not be false at all, but are instead just things that they don’t want people talking about.

In media-speak, “combating misinformation” does not mean debate; it entails to a lazy combination of dismissal and censorship.

This is an example: Hunter Biden’s laptop. It was an awful story for Biden and, by extension, for his media friends. Then, in came the “experts” to save the day. A small group of ex-intelligence officials made regular guest appearances at CNN and MSNBC. Send a letter claiming that the whole laptop story had “all the hallmarks” of a Russian disinformation campaign — which is a fancy of saying there was no evidence to prove that it was, but it sure seemed like maybe it could be.

This baseless assertion by former employees of the government was not supported by the Director of National Intelligence or FBI. But the media, seeing the letter for the political tool that it was, ran with it and spent several weeks warning everyone who’d listen that the entire Hunter Biden laptop story was a fake Russian conspiracy theory.

That’s how the misinformation game works. When inconvenient news stories pop up, the media go expert shopping and find people who’re willing to go on TV and call those stories “misinformation.” Social media companies follow suit and slap warning labels on related news articles, or even remove them entirely.