Claims that Online Misinformation Fears Are Overblown 'Radically Understates' the Scale of the Threat
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The Cato Institute has just published a long paper arguing that public concern around misinformation is overblown, politicised, and harmful to free speech. It's slick, readable - and fundamentally misleading.
Here's why.
One of the author's central complaints is that no one agrees on what "misinformation" actually means. And he's right - there is confusion. So let's be precise.
Media scholar Clare Wardle and colleagues have developed a helpful typology:
Disinformation: false or misleading information spread deliberately to deceive or manipulate
Misinformation: false or misleading information shared by people who believe it is true
Malinformation: true information used in misleading or harmful ways
These categories help us move beyond vague fears and examine the different forms that harmful information can take.
But even this isn't the full picture. The real danger comes when such material forms 'disordered discourse' - systems of belief that reinforce themselves, reject correction, and disconnect people from any shared standard of reality.
The Cato paper treats harmful information as a few false claims floating around online. It argues that people rarely fall for such claims, the damage is minor, and the real problem is elite overreaction.
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This radically understates the scale and nature of the issue.
The danger isn't just that people believe lies. It's that entire communities can become locked into belief systems that cannot be challenged - where loyalty replaces evidence, and disagreement feels like betrayal. That doesn't merely distort truth; it breaks trust.
When this happens at scale, it isn't just bad information - it is a breakdown in how society makes decisions. We lose the ability to deliberate, to find common ground, to hold anyone accountable.
That's what disordered discourse really is: a collapse in collective reasoning.
And when debate collapses, power doesn't disappear - it just becomes unaccountable. Truth becomes tribal. Institutions become hollow. People are left shouting across a void, each group convinced the others are insane or evil.
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Packed with exclusive investigations, analysis, and features
SUBSCRIBE TODAY
The Cato Institute has just published a long paper arguing that public concern around misinformation is overblown, politicised, and harmful to free speech. It's slick, readable - and fundamentally misleading.
Here's why.
One of the author's central complaints is that no one agrees on what "misinformation" actually means. And he's right - there is confusion. So let's be precise.
Media scholar Clare Wardle and colleagues have developed a helpful typology:
Disinformation: false or misleading information spread deliberately to deceive or manipulate
Misinformation: false or misleading information shared by people who believe it is true
Malinformation: true information used in misleading or harmful ways
These categories help us move beyond vague fears and examine the different forms that harmful information can take.
But even this isn't the full picture. The real danger comes when such material forms 'disordered discourse' - systems of belief that reinforce themselves, reject correction, and disconnect people from any shared standard of reality.
The Cato paper treats harmful information as a few false claims floating around online. It argues that people rarely fall for such claims, the damage is minor, and the real problem is elite overreaction.
From Murdoch to Musk: Hacking the State
While the media mogul spent more than half a century building up back-door political influence, the social media broligarch stormed into the US Government in just two years. Peter Jukes explores how the use of power through media has evolved
Peter Jukes
This radically understates the scale and nature of the issue.
The danger isn't just that people believe lies. It's that entire communities can become locked into belief systems that cannot be challenged - where loyalty replaces evidence, and disagreement feels like betrayal. That doesn't merely distort truth; it breaks trust.
When this happens at scale, it isn't just bad information - it is a breakdown in how society makes decisions. We lose the ability to deliberate, to find common ground, to hold anyone accountable.
That's what disordered discourse really is: a collapse in collective reasoning.
And when debate collapses, power doesn't disappear - it just becomes unaccountable. Truth becomes tribal. Institutions become hollow. People are left shouting across a void, each group convinced the others are insane or evil.
From Z to X: How Russian Information Warfare Primed the World for Trump and Musk
"Money and information are the twin tactical nukes of modern politics" according to Steve Bannon. But the the seeds for this tech dystopia were sown more than a decade ago
Peter Jukes
That isn't freedom. It's fragmentation.
We have seen this repeatedly: QAnon, COVID denial,
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