An informed look at disinformation

When we ask about the classification of disinformation, we do so primarily because we are concerned with the meaning of the concept of “truth”. Generally speaking, truth can be considered the opposite of what is factually false. Such a simplistic heuristic ultimately raises more questions than it answers: it may still be quite easy to agree on obvious facts - for example, that fresh grass is green, or the cloudless sky is blue. Even these simple statements can be considered controversial on closer inspection: the color of a cloudless sky, for example, varies depending on the time of day, and there are sure to be some sharp-tongued individuals who will point out that the shade of green of different plants tends to differ and that we should be more accurate in our descriptions. With every judgmental statement that contributes significantly to the formation of a world view, i.e. that contains facts, unanimous agreement becomes less likely.

Our self-confidence based on facts is actually nothing more than a collective fiction. The etymological proximity between fact and fiction is no coincidence: both terms have their origins in the Latin word facere, which means to make, produce or fabricate. Both facts and fictions are therefore (artificially) manufactured, they are by no means simply given like dates (lat. datum=given). The example of colors can thus also be resolved: it is possible to measure the wavelength of colors unambiguously and thus determine the color value numerically, but the interpretation of the stimuli received by the optic nerve can sometimes differ significantly.

It was Socrates who so wisely said “I know that I know nothing”, thus granting the unknown an important place in the context of being informed. True to this motto, the amount of what is unknown is many times greater than the vanishingly small proportion of what is known or known.
Donald Rumsfeld struck a similar chord when he gave a notorious speech on February 12, 2002, in which he justified the US intervention in Iraq with a lack of evidence of weapons of mass destruction: “[T]here are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns - there are things we do not know we don't know.”
This last category hides a lot of potential for so-called disinformation: if we always walk through the world with the idea that there are things we don't know that we don't know, then any rhetoric of salvation from “alternative” media will fall on fertile ground.

What Donald Rumsfeld, a conservative US Republican, is doing here is adopting certain talking points taken directly from the French (post-)structuralists, who can be located at the exact other end of the political spectrum (cf. Deleuze & Guattari 1992 among others). Michel Serres, for example, wrote the following lines: “We have seen the theory of knowledge, the theory of non-knowledge, and then that theory whereby knowledge finally says the same thing as non-knowledge” (Serres 1975: 185), and Michel Foucault was also known throughout his life for speaking of truth as a discursive state of affairs that is permeated by hegemonic power structures (cf. Foucault 1983, 1989, 1995, among others).

In short: whereas in the ancient past, truth was still regarded as something absolute and irrefutable, regardless of whether people were able to recognize that truth or not, today's potential truth-seekers find a jungle of approaches, proposals, answers, problematizations and scepticisms, all of which have one thing in common: they are potentially highly relative.

But if everything were truly relative, then it would be possible to argue equally for every world view. The world of relativism is the world of alternative facts and disinformation as we currently experience it.

In line with the train of thought initiated above, a distinction must therefore be made between a lack of information and an excess of disinformation. In times before global networking in real time, which has been underway since the invention of printing through the introduction of mass media and which has reached its peak with the triumph of the WWW, talk of insufficient information still makes sense: knowledge and power – knowledge as power – was concentrated in the hands of secular rulers and the clergy for long periods of time. The trend towards the democratization of knowledge goes hand in hand with a significant increase in self-determination and the risk of drowning in a veritable flood of information. So there can really be no question of humanity being uninformed these days. With an ever-growing range of media outlets that appear equally credible, at least at first glance, it takes a savvy approach to separate the proverbial wheat from the chaff. A new form of media literacy is required in order to be able to navigate through the information sphere of the present in a self-determined way. In addition to half-truths and tendentious reporting, which also existed in pre-digital times, more recently there have also been articles that are deliberately intended to sow doubt and pursue an agenda aimed at destabilizing such political systems that are based on a heterogeneity of perspectives. To this end, it is important to give people the feeling that they are informed without actually being informed; disinformation “does” exactly that.

Even if it seems tempting to lump misinformation and disinformation together in the same pot, one should be aware of the difference between these two types of information-based falsehood: unlike a lie (or disinformation), where the person who tells it must at least know the facts that they are distorting – the proverbial “truth” – dangerous half-knowledge (or misinformation) can result in misunderstandings, which in turn lead to a serious shift in public discourse. Both situations can have a negative effect on social cohesion, but the motivations underlying the two situations sometimes vary fundamentally: the difference lies in the intentionality of disinformation, which is often used as a weapon in hybrid warfare, and the downright negligence of misinformation. In the latter case, media actors who disseminate misinformation see themselves called upon to make subsequent corrections. In the case of disinformation, there is of course no such correction.

Ute Cohen offers an interesting perspective on this complex of topics, making the following diagnosis: “Fact checks [...] quickly reach their limits in a post-factual, speaker-fixated society. A society in which the fear of losing one's livelihood is growing also allows the longing for trust to flourish, not least for the manipulator [sic!] who uses gentle force to lull his followers into a sense of security. Lies and dazzling half-truths satisfy the desire for protection. Both are therefore more than just an entertainment tool [...]. They are an effective means of power” (Cohen 2025: 36).

When we talk about the current state of affairs when it comes to disinformation, a reference to artificial intelligence (AI) is of course a must. The generative possibilities offered by the completely digitized present - both visual and textual - do not come without risks. Where there is light, there is always shadow. As powerful as algorithms may be, they only ever reflect the quality of the data with which they are fed: Misinformation, bias or maliciously manipulated inputs can lead to credible but deceptive results. We are already seeing how deepfakes distort real image and sound recordings to such an extent that even experts can barely distinguish them from reality. This harbors the risk of truth and fiction merging imperceptibly and creating veritable data biases - with serious consequences for social interaction and political discourse. Technical progress alone is not enough to counteract this: We also need robust ethical guard rails, continuous education and digital resilience in the form of fact checks, transparency obligations and algorithmic responsibility. This is the only way to heuristically prevent the experiment from turning into an epidemic of disinformation and enable us to collectively preserve the integrity of our digital communication.

The fact that in a multipolar world many perspectives can be cast on one and the same topic ensures that pretty much every report is contradicted. Seeking an objective “truth” can therefore be considered a foolish endeavor that has little chance of success. Rather, it can only be a matter of uncovering and naming falsehood in those respects that tend to work against a pluralistic society. The more we surround ourselves in our everyday lives with such news that is automatically curated, i.e. in which artificially intelligent actors are involved, the more important it is to put on explicitly multi-perspective glasses and not to exaggerate our own bias, which is certainly present, by algorithmic means.

Cohen, Ute (2025): Glamour. Über das Wagnis, sich kunstvoll zu inszenieren. Zu Klampen Verlag, Springe.

Deleuze, Gilles & Guattari, Félix (1992): Tausend Plateaus. Kapitalismus & Schizophrenie 2. Merve Verlag, Berlin.

Foucault, Michel (1983): Sexualität und Wahrheit Bd.1: Der Wille zum Wissen. Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt a.M.

Foucault, Michel (1989): Sexualität und Wahrheit Bd. 2: Der Gebrauch der Lüste. Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt a.M.

Foucault, Michel (1995): Sexualität und Wahrheit Bd. 3: Die Sorge um sich. Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt a.M.

Serres, Michel (1975): “Jules Verne’s Strange Journeys.” In: Yale French Studies, No. 52, Graphesis: Perspectives in Literature and Philosophy. Bloomsbury, London, S. 188-217.