Member-only story
Dictionary.com ‘Misinforms’ Readers About Obesity in Word of the Year Announcement
Last we checked, Dictionary.com is not a great place to get medical advice.
Earlier today, Dictionary.com announced that it has named “misinformation” as the 2018 Word of the Year. Ironically, the example Dictionary.com cites as misinformation in health reporting is itself the epitome of misinformation.
The press release outlining Dictionary.com’s Word of the Year announcement described several examples where misinformation was presented to the public, prompting the destructive spread of false information through various channels (such as social media). The announcement also explained the difference between “misinformation” and “disinformation.”
“The word misinformation is particularly interesting as its meaning is widely conflated with disinformation,” said Jane Solomon, linguist-in-residence at Dictionary.com. “The intent behind the two words is important to note — with misinformation, the intent is generally not to mislead; with disinformation, the intent is always to mislead.” Examples of disinformation include government propaganda or smear campaigns by rival politicians.
Some examples of misinformation given in Dictionary.com’s announcement include technology companies’ role in spreading false information (e.g. Facebook’s Cambridge Analytica scandal), social media being used to incite violence or conflict around the world, inaccurate discussions about the environment leading to climate change denial, the rise of flat Earthers, and so on. Regarding misinformation in health reporting, the press release stated:
“We’ve also seen the rise of misinfodemics over the last several years, which is the spread of misinformation about health that leads to the spread of real-world health crises. This is seen with the anti-vaxxer movement, which started with a report by a former physician whose license was revoked and work retracted, but whose efforts have led to a sustained fear of vaccines. A study published earlier this year in the American Journal of Public Health found that the same troll and bot accounts that attempted to influence the US election had also been sharing false information about vaccines on Twitter, with the goal of eroding…
