The Guardian view on misinformation: a moral problem | Editorial

Those seeking to deceive politicians and the public know distraction works better than outright fraudMost of the recent worries over the spread of propaganda have concentrated on the use of social media: WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube have all been rightly criticised for their use in spreading misinformation. Less attention, perhaps, has been given to the content of the messages and the strategy behind their use. The template for many modern campaigns of disinformation was invented by the tobacco industry as it fought against the mounting evidence that it was selling a product that killed its users.The "tobacco strategy" as researchers christened it, relied less on outright lies than on confusion and irrelevant truths. For example, the tobacco industry funded first-class research into the harmful effects of asbestos to produce the impression that all kinds of things gave you cancer - so why worry about the ones that give pleasure as well? Continue reading...