I confidently passed this non-fact on to a bunch of other people before I thought to fact-check it. At least some of them probably assumed I knew what I was talking about, and passed it on to others.

This is how viral misinformation spreads. Along relationships of trust and credibility, that tunnel under critical thinking. People spreading disinformation hack those channels to spread their intentionally-generated non-facts.

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#misinformation #disinformation #ViralMedia #MediaVirus

@rimu This is basically a spin on Douglas Rushkoff's media virus theory, updated for changes in online geography. Like much current discourse, it assumes the origin of disinfo is distributed. Although as the author says, the funnel can run backwards and I think that's the dominant direction of flow. In fact I'm arguing that states are the origin point for most disinfo, targeted at both competitors and their own citizens (eg COINTELPRO). This has important implications for solutions.

#MediaVirus