Politics
When researchers call disinformation anything but disinfo
WASHINGTON: “Disinformation” is fast becoming a dirty word in the United States — a label so contentious in a hyperpolarised political climate that some researchers who study the harmful effects of falsehoods are abandoning it altogether.
In an era of online deception and information manipulation, the study of disinformation seems more critical than ever, but researchers are battling federal funding cuts, a surge of abuse, and even death threats — fuelled in part by accusations from conservative advocates of a liberal bias.
Some researchers are now opting for more neutral language — words, and at times, technical jargon that are less likely to inflame or derail vital public discourse about falsehoods flooding the internet.
Earlier this year, the watchdog NewsGuard announced it was retiring the labels “misinformation” and “disinformation” — terms it said were “politicised beyond recognition and turned into partisan weapons by actors on the right and the left, and among anti-democratic foreign actors”.
It renamed its so-called “Misinformation Fingerprints” database to “False Claim Fingerprints,” opting for language that it said was “more precise” and “harder to hijack”.
“A simple phrase like ‘false claim’ is more powerful and precise than ‘misinformation’ and ‘disinformation’,” said NewsGuard’s McKenzie Sadeghi.
“It names the problem plainly and directs attention to the content itself — without triggering partisan reflexes or rhetorical spin”.
‘Fractured information ecosystem’
Terms such as “fake news”, “misinformation” and “disinformation” pre-date the internet age, but they have never been more heavily weaponised by governments and vested interests to silence critics and thwart legitimate debate.
Peter Cunliffe-Jones, author of the book “Fake News — What’s the harm,” has advocated for using more specific alternatives ranging from false or unproven to mislabelled or fabricated.
Such labels “do not simply declare information false but explain the way in which information is untrue or misleading,” he said.
“That way, we hopefully create less room for cynical disputes and more for better understanding.”
States including Russia routinely dismiss credible Western media reports as disinformation.
Some governments have even co-opted fact-checking itself — launching state-sponsored “fact checks” to legitimise their own propaganda and spin.
“In today’s fractured information ecosystem, one person’s ‘misinformation’ or ‘disinformation’ is another’s truth,” said Sadeghi.
“And in that ambiguity, bad actors win.”
‘Provocative and dangerous’
The debate comes as major tech platforms pull back key anti-misinformation guardrails — including scaling down content moderation and reducing their reliance on human fact-checkers, who reject accusations of liberal bias.
However, Emerson Brooking, from the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab (DFRLab), said the problem with abandoning the term disinformation was the lack of a clear replacement to describe the intention to deceive.
“This idea of intentionality is very important,” he told AFP.
“If we see thousands of fake accounts posting a false claim in unison, we can reasonably describe it as a disinformation campaign.”
The label, however, has become so heavily politicised that officials in US President Donald Trump’s administration have equated disinformation research with censorship.
Following Trump’s executive order on “ending federal censorship,” the National Science Foundation recently cancelled hundreds of grants, including projects that supported disinformation research.
In April, Secretary of State Marco Rubio shut down the State Department’s Counter Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference (R/FIMI) hub — formerly known as the Global Engagement Centre (GEC) — which was responsible for tracking and countering disinformation from foreign actors.
Rubio justified its closure, saying that it was the government’s responsibility to “preserve and protect the freedom for Americans to exercise their free speech”.
“It’s true that the term (disinformation) has been politicised, and that using it can feel provocative — even dangerous,” Brooking said.
“But so long as it has descriptive value, it should still be used. My organisation fights authoritarian information manipulation around the world — if we start censoring our own language, we aren’t doing a good job.”
China’s top internet regulator said Tuesday it would take action against ByteDance-owned news app Jinri Toutiao and Alibaba’s internet browser company UCWeb for allegedly displaying harmful content, a day after announcing a two-month social media crackdown.
The Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) vowed on Monday to combat content containing “malicious incitement of conflict” and “negative outlooks on life such as world-weariness”.
Beijing requires social media companies to moderate content on their platforms, with posts strictly controlled to avoid anything deemed to be too subversive, vulgar, pornographic or generally harmful.
The CAC had already announced penalties this month against three popular digital platforms— micro-blogging platform Weibo, short video app Kuaishou and Instagram-like Xiaohongshu—for allegedly neglecting content management duties.
Authorities have not specified what punitive actions are being taken against those platforms.
The CAC said on Tuesday that measures taken against news aggregator app Toutiao included “summoning the company for a meeting, ordering rectification within a specified time limit, issuing a warning, and strictly dealing with those responsible”.
The platform had failed to fulfil its primary responsibility of managing information content and allowed “harmful content” to appear on the main section of its trending search list, “thereby damaging the online ecosystem”, the statement said.
It gave no further details about the content type or punishments.
“Internet regulators will continue to focus on prominent illegal and non-compliant activities that undermine the online ecosystem,” the CAC added.
In a separate statement on Tuesday, the CAC said it would take similar measures against UCWeb after the Alibaba-owned platform displayed entries relating to “extremely sensitive and malicious” events and topics such as “online violence and the privacy of minors”.
The two-month campaign announced on Monday by the CAC aims “to regulate the malicious incitement of conflict and the promotion of violence and vicious currents”, the CAC said.
The statement then listed specific online issues authorities hope to tackle in the crackdown, including “exploiting social hot spots to forcibly associate identity, region or gender with other information, stigmatising and hyping them”.
The Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia, Sheikh Abdulaziz bin Abdullah Al-Sheikh, has passed away at the age of 82 after a period of illness (Inna Lillahi Wa Inna Ilayhi Raji’un).
According to official announcements, his funeral prayer will be held at Riyadh’s Imam Turki bin Abdullah Mosque after the Asr prayer.
In addition, King Salman bin Abdulaziz has directed that absentee funeral prayers (Salat al-Gha’ib) be offered for the late Grand Mufti at the Grand Mosque in Makkah, the Prophet’s Mosque in Madinah, and in all mosques across the Kingdom after Asr.
Sheikh Abdulaziz Al-Sheikh served as the Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia, head of the Council of Senior Scholars, and President of the General Presidency for Scholarly Research and Ifta.
He was the third Grand Mufti of the Kingdom, following Sheikh Muhammad bin Ibrahim Al-Sheikh and Sheikh Abdulaziz bin Baz.
Born on November 30, 1943, in Makkah, Sheikh Abdulaziz lost his father before the age of eight. Despite his early hardships, he memorised the Holy Qur’an at a young age and later lost his eyesight in his twenties.
His dedication to religious learning led him to pursue higher studies in Shariah, and he went on to serve in various scholarly councils and as the imam and khateeb of Riyadh’s Imam Turki bin Abdullah Mosque. He also delivered important sermons at Masjid Namirah during Hajj.
Throughout his career, Sheikh Abdulaziz authored numerous scholarly works on Islamic jurisprudence, faith, and matters of halal and haram.
His contributions included collections of fatwas, research writings, and guidance on key religious issues, which were widely followed across the Muslim world.
King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman extended their deepest condolences to the family of the late Grand Mufti, the Saudi people, and Muslims worldwide.
- US delegation urges deeper Beijing-Washington dialogue.
- China’s defence minister calls to remove disruptive factors.
- TikTok, tariffs are also on the discussion agenda.
BEIJING: The leader of a US congressional delegation to China warned Tuesday of the “risk of a misunderstanding” between the two countries’ militaries as advances in defence technology move at breakneck speed.
Adam Smith, the most senior Democrat on Washington’s Armed Services Committee, told journalists in Beijing that China needs to talk more about its military with other global powers “for basic de-confliction”.
“We’ve seen this with our ships, our planes, their ships, their planes coming entirely too close to one another,” he said at a news conference at the US Embassy.
“We need to have a better conversation about de-conflicting those things.”
The four-person delegation also includes other members of the same Armed Services Committee — Democrats Ro Khanna and Chrissy Houlahan — as well as Republican congressman Michael Baumgartner, a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee.
The group on Monday met Chinese Defence Minister Dong Jun, with whom they talked about the importance of “working through our differences” and more candid dialogue, according to a statement from the US side.
Dong called on the visitors to “remove disruptive and restrictive factors” between them, China’s Xinhua state news agency reported.
Speaking on Tuesday alongside the other lawmakers and the US Ambassador to China, David Perdue, Smith said: “AI and drone warfare and cyber and space is moving so rapidly and innovation is happening so quickly.
“The risk of a misunderstanding of capabilities on one side or the other is great,” he said, adding the two sides need to talk so they “don’t stumble in any sort of conflicts”.
Tariffs and TikTok
The bipartisan congressional delegation comes just days after Presidents Xi Jinping and Donald Trump spoke by telephone for the second time since the return to the White House of Trump, who has tried to keep a lid on tensions despite his once virulent criticism of China.
Trump said he would meet Xi on the sidelines of an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in South Korea starting at the end of next month and that he would travel to China next year.
He said Xi would also visit the United States at an unspecified time and that the two leaders would speak again by telephone.
Both sides dramatically hiked tariffs against each other during a months-long dispute earlier this year, disrupting global supply chains.
Washington and Beijing then reached a deal to reduce levies, with the United States imposing 30% duties on imports of Chinese goods and China hitting US products with a 10% tariff. The deal expires in November.
Smith’s group on Monday held talks with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng, in which they discussed the ongoing trade talks and the hot-button issues of fentanyl, critical minerals and the future of TikTok.
The White House has said a US version of TikTok would feature a homegrown model of the app’s prized algorithm, potentially clearing one of the main obstacles to keeping the Chinese-owned platform online in the United States.
Asked about the TikTok issue, Smith said: “My understanding is that I don’t think that has been 100% resolved.”
The delegation will also meet China’s National People’s Congress Chairman Zhao Leji and Foreign Minister Wang Yi.
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