Breaking Down the Headlines: Misinformation and Disinformation

Borderland Rainbow Center
6 days ago
12 min read

In our last Breaking Down the Headlines topic we discussed the 2026 United States Counterterrorism Strategy and propaganda. This week we are focusing on important tools of propaganda: misinformation and disinformation.

Trying to stay informed about what is happening in the world can feel exhausting right now. Every day, we are flooded with headlines, TikToks, tweets, videos, breaking news alerts, and “hot takes” all competing for our attention. And while access to information can be empowering, it also means people are constantly navigating misinformation and disinformation, sometimes without even realizing it.

What is Mis and Disinformation?

Misinformation is false, inaccurate, or incomplete information shared by people who believe it is true. Sometimes it is something truthful presented in a misleading way. A person sharing misinformation does not necessarily have the intent to cause harm.

Disinformation is false or misleading information created and shared intentionally to manipulate, confuse, spread fear, or advance an agenda. Disinformation can cause misinformation, when someone shares disinformation believing it to be true.

Both can spread incredibly fast online, especially when people are scared, angry, or emotionally overwhelmed. Both can be tools of propaganda.

What Does Misinformation and Disinformation Look Like in Real Life?

Sometimes misinformation and disinformation can be difficult to identify because they do not always look like outright lies. In many cases, they contain a small piece of truth that has been exaggerated, stripped of context, or presented in a misleading way.

In the news, misinformation can look like:

A headline that dramatically overstates what a study actually found.
An article that focuses on a single unusual incident and presents it as a widespread trend.
Reporting that relies on incomplete information during a breaking news event and later turns out to be inaccurate.
Statistics presented without important context, making a situation appear much better or worse than it actually is.

For example, a headline might imply that a new policy "bans" something nationwide when the actual policy only affects a specific location. Many readers never get past the headline, leaving them with a misunderstanding of what actually happened.

In the news, disinformation can look like:

Media outlets or commentators knowingly spreading false claims to influence public opinion.
Coordinated efforts to push misleading narratives about a political issue, election, or social movement.
Selectively presenting facts while intentionally hiding information that would change the audience's understanding.
Using emotionally charged language to create fear around a group of people based on false or misleading claims.

The goal of disinformation is often not to convince everyone that something false is true. Sometimes the goal is simply to create confusion and make people unsure what to believe.

On social media, misinformation can look like:

Someone sharing an old news story as if it happened yesterday.
A well-meaning friend reposting an inaccurate statistic because they believed it was correct.
Viral graphics that make dramatic claims but provide no source.
Short video clips that leave out important context from a longer speech or event.

On social media, disinformation can look like:

Fake accounts pretending to be experts, journalists, or community members.
Coordinated networks of accounts pushing the same misleading narrative simultaneously.
Edited videos, manipulated images, or AI-generated content designed to deceive viewers.
Posts deliberately targeting fears about marginalized communities in order to generate outrage.

For example, a fabricated story about immigrants, transgender people, or another marginalized group may be shared thousands of times before fact-checkers can respond. Even after being debunked, the false claim may continue to spread because people remember the emotional reaction more than the correction.

Malicious Intent

Misinformation and disinformation have real-world consequences, especially for vulnerable communities. False narratives targeting LGBTQ+ people, immigrants, racial minorities, religious groups, and other marginalized communities are often used to justify discrimination, harmful legislation, censorship, harassment, and violence. Disinformation campaigns frequently rely on fearmongering and scapegoating to divide people and make communities easier to target politically and socially.

Currently, and at many points throughout our history, institutions of power, including media outlets and government entities and officials, have deliberately developed disinformation campaigns to influence public opinion or advance a political agenda. Let’s take a look at one example from the resource Identify and Challenge Disinformation provided by Portland State University.

The image below was tweeted by Donald Trump during the 2016 Presidential campaign. The purpose of this image was to “discredit” truth regarding police brutality against black people by pushing the “black on black violence” narrative with statistics.

The fact-checking site Politifact posted an analysis of these statistics and rated it "pants on fire." The analysis is shared below listed with numbers corresponding to the yellow circled numbers on the image.

Image is meant to provoke fear, and feeds racist narrative of violent young black men.
Statistics do not account for the much smaller proportion of black Americans versus the overall population. If proportion is taken into account, black Americans are 2.5 times more likely to be killed by police than whites.
Statistics available for 2015 from the FBI demonstrate that these numbers have been reversed. Approximately 81% of whites were killed by whites, approximately 16% of whites were killed by blacks.
And perhaps the most jarring, there is no such entity as the "Crime Statistics Bureau”. The creators of this graphic co-opted the visual indicator of an authoritative source in order to deceive their audience.

This is an example of disinformation used as propaganda. This example includes deliberate misrepresentation of statistics, and an outright lie of inventing a source. If a person didn’t take the initiative to fact-check this graphic, they may allow it to feed their existing biases regarding black people, or may believe that the “statistics” shown are accurate based on the perceived authority of the made up source.

Good Intentions Can Still Cause Harm

But misinformation and disinformation don’t only happen in the case of someone trying to cause harm. People with the intentions to inform or even protect people may unknowingly share misinformation or even deliberately disinformation because it triggers a deep sense of justice or protective feelings. Because those feelings may be deeply tied to that individual’s value system, the information may “feel right”, leading to the individual not making attempts to verify information before presenting it as true.

A person or organization may also knowingly engage in disinformation when they believe that the details, nuance, or truth don’t matter as much as the “spirit” of the information they are sharing. They may deliberately exaggerate or misrepresent something in an attempt to sway others toward their position. This tactic does not guarantee the recruitment or action of allies to a cause, and can ultimately cause harm to already vulnerable people, as they may be led to believe that the worst-case scenario is already happening, which can lead to disempowerment, hopelessness, and severe mental and emotional distress. And, this tactic can also erode trust within activist spaces.

Below is an example of disinformation shared from “good intentions”. If you have followed immigration policy and news, you likely remember this image going viral in 2018 and 2019.

The image was captured on June 10, 2018, during a public protest in Dallas, Texas. Important disclosure: Our DRIEP director participated in the planning of this event and was at this event in a personal capacity prior to beginning work with Borderland Rainbow Center. This example is provided from firsthand knowledge.

The event was planned and executed by multiple local activist groups. At the event, a controversial display was created. A cage was constructed, and teens who attended the protest volunteered to hold signs and stand in the cage to represent the thousands of detained migrant children. As can happen when multiple organizations come together, there was disagreement among organizers regarding this display. During the event, a young child attending with his family briefly wandered into the prop cage, became upset when he could not immediately find his way out, and began crying. Although he was quickly reunited with his mother, a photograph was taken and later shared online with misleading context, falsely presenting him as a child detained by the U.S. immigration system.

The image spread widely, appearing in news articles, viral social media posts, was featured on protest signs, and appeared in television newscasts. Some organizers attempted to correct the information surrounding the image but faced resistance from those who felt the image’s symbolic value outweighed concerns about accuracy and the ethics surrounding the photo. Even after the true origin of the photo became known, some people continued to share it as evidence of migrant child detention. When the facts later received broader media attention, opponents of immigrant rights advocacy used the incident in attempts to discredit legitimate reporting and authentic images documenting the detention of migrant children. This example illustrates how disinformation and misinformation can undermine a cause, create conflict among advocates, and provide critics with opportunities to challenge otherwise credible evidence and reporting.

Why Truth Can Seem Difficult to Find

Our information ecosystem increasingly rewards speed over accuracy. Long before social media existed, the rise of the 24-hour news cycle transformed how information was produced and consumed. News organizations that once had hours or days to verify information suddenly faced constant pressure to fill airtime and break stories before their competitors. Being first became almost as important as being right. While many journalists continue to uphold rigorous standards, the demand for immediate updates created an environment where incomplete information, speculation, and early reporting errors could spread quickly. Social media accelerated this trend even further, turning every user into a potential publisher and making information travel globally in seconds.

Online platforms, while allowing many people access to information and creating space for independent journalism to grow, have increasingly turned news consumption into something that resembles a game. Likes, shares, comments, views, and follower counts reward content that captures attention, especially content that provokes strong emotional reactions. Algorithms reward engagement, not accuracy. Content that sparks outrage, panic, or conflict is often pushed to the top because it keeps people clicking, commenting, and sharing. That means exaggerated headlines, misleading clips, and emotionally charged posts can spread much faster than careful, fact-based reporting. This creates fertile ground for misinformation and disinformation, because content does not need to be accurate to go viral, it only needs to be engaging.

This does NOT mean that emotionally charged content should be automatically dismissed as misinformation or disinformation. It's important to be mindful of tone policing - a tactic that dismisses the substance of an argument based on the emotional or forceful manner in which it is delivered - and not just assume that emotional delivery of information automatically means it is mis or disinformation. When sharing upsetting things, it is a normal human reaction to be upset. People who are directly impacted by an issue may deliver information about it in a more emotionally charged way. That does not mean that they are less of an expert, untrustworthy, or "too angry" or emotional to be believed. At the same time, it is important to remember that in an environment where attention has become a valuable commodity, slowing down, verifying information, and resisting the pressure to react immediately have become essential skills for anyone trying to stay informed.

What Can You Do?

One of the most important things to remember is that misinformation and disinformation often succeed because they appeal to emotions. If a piece of content makes you feel instantly furious, terrified, or vindicated, that is a moment to pause and investigate further. Strong emotions do not automatically mean you are looking at misinformation or disinformation, but can make us more vulnerable to sharing content before verifying it.

In today's media environment, one of the most powerful questions we can ask is simple: "How do I know this is true?" Taking a few extra moments to answer that question can help prevent misinformation or disinformation from spreading and make all of us more informed and resilient members of our communities. That is why developing and improving skills in consuming and assessing media is a form of community protection.

The term most widely used to describe the skills for consuming and assessing media is media literacy. Media literacy is the “The ability to access, analyze, evaluate, create, and act using all forms of communication” (NAMLE, 2026). It involves:

Consuming and evaluating information
Asking critical questions
Avoiding manipulation
Engaging in digital spaces safely and confidently

(Media Literacy Now, 2026)

An important note: Because "literacy" historically implies a deficiency in basic intelligence or ability when paired with words like "illiterate," many educators and advocates are shifting away from the term media literacy and toward specific functional phrases such as:

Critical Media Engagement: Shifts the focus toward active participation and analysis rather than passing or failing a test of academic intelligence.
Information Fluency / Digital Fluency: Focuses on the ability to navigate, verify, and understand information, removing the strict binary of being literate or illiterate.
Digital Wellness: Addresses how to interact with technology in a healthy, balanced way that respects individual neuro-needs.

The majority of resources available still utilize the term media literacy, but you will likely see the terms above, along with others, gain more traction. Below are some things to watch for as you improve your skills and comfort level in consuming and assessing media, and work to identify misinformation and disinformation:

Your own confirmation bias. Confirmation bias refers to processing information by looking for, or interpreting, information that is consistent with one's existing beliefs. This biased approach to decision making is largely unintentional and often results in ignoring inconsistent information. Existing beliefs can include one's expectations in a given situation and predictions about a particular outcome (Encyclopedia of Social Psychology).
Headlines designed to make you panic or rage instantly. This is not a guaranteed indicator of misinformation or disinformation, but it is an opportunity to pause and look for more information.
Posts that provide no source or only vague “they say” claims
Screenshots without context
Accounts that constantly push outrage but never evidence
Stories that seem almost too shocking to be true. Again, this doesn't mean it isn't true, but it is an opportunity to pause and try to verify.
Videos or clips that may be edited to remove context
Content that pressures you to “share immediately before it gets deleted”. This feeds into the sense of urgency that helps disinformation spread. It plays into our sense of guilt, that if I don't share it right now, I will be the sole reason this information, or I will be the sole reason something bad happens.

Some practical ways to improve your media literacy/critical media engagement and push back against mis and disinformation:

Pause before sharing emotionally charged content. Release the thought that if you don’t share immediately it means you don’t care. Take a moment to process what you’ve consumed. Our brains and bodies have not evolved to process the volume of information we receive. You can give yourself permission to pause.
Read beyond the headline before reacting. Remember that headlines are designed for engagement or “clicks”. Read the full article or post, or watch the full video before sharing.
Check whether multiple trusted sources are reporting the same information. This does not necessarily mean only “mainstream” sources. Information can be verified through community sources and independent journalists too. Familiarizing yourself with trustworthy community and independent sources is especially important when government and mainstream entities are part of the misinformation and disinformation problem.
Pay attention to the publication date, especially for viral posts. Is this something happening now, or is this older information being recirculated for a specific agenda?
Find and provide the additional context that’s missing. There may be times that a video or image is factual, but missing information and context allow it to become a tool for spreading fear or confusion instead of being something that is informative and actionable. Before you share it, find what’s missing and include it when you share.
Watch for language designed to provoke panic, outrage, or fear. Again, this does not definitively mean you are looking at misinformation or disinformation, but it is a signal to take a deeper look.
Research the credibility of the website, creator, or account sharing the information. This can be challenging, and you may not always assess correctly. It is important when doing this that you are aware of bias you may have concerning perceived race, gender, disability, social class, etc. Bias may cause you to discredit a source when it is in fact credible, or to assume a source is credible when it is not. This is one reason it is helpful to engage multiple sources of information whenever possible.
Notice when posts or articles rely heavily on vague claims like “they don’t want you to know this”. This can be an indicator of propaganda, as it may be seeking to create a sense of belonging through “exclusive information”, which may influence our perception of the information and its accuracy. This doesn’t definitively mean that the information is incorrect or misrepresented, but it is another signal to take a closer look.
Utilize fact-checking resources. You can use a fact-checking site such as PolitiFact, FactCheck.org, AP Fact Check, Reuters Fact Check or Snopes.
Remember that even sources you trust can spread misinformation and disinformation. This is why it is critically important to go deeper than just the headlines and remember that nobody is completely immune to misinformation or disinformation.
Talking openly with friends and family about how misinformation and disinformation spreads. Letting people know when they’ve shared mis or disinformation is important, and helping them know what to look for can be empowering!
Being willing to correct ourselves when we learn new information. We can tend to have a real fear of being wrong. That fear can make us double down instead of embracing opportunities to learn and grow. As humans, we can tend to interpret "knowledge" we have as being tied to our value system and who we are as a person. This makes admitting when we are wrong all the more challenging. But being wrong isn't a moral failure, it just means the information we thought was correct, isn't. That's it. Then, we have the ability to choose whether we will use the correct information, or continue on with the incorrect information. Growth or willful ignorance.

Algorithms are designed to keep us emotionally engaged and constantly reacting. But slowing down, asking questions, and thinking critically helps protect both ourselves and our communities. At a time when misinformation and disinformation are being used to fuel chaos, attacks on marginalized groups, and political fear campaigns, staying informed responsibly is an act of resistance. Truth matters. Context matters. And the way we share information with each other can either strengthen our communities, or make them more vulnerable to harm.