Preface

Abstract

It could be you: who benefits from quick search, easy read and simple links to the Disinfo Dictionary

For whom?

The lexicon allows you to quickly search for and link to fakes that refute Russian narratives.

  • Journalists
  • Fact checkers
  • Disinformation activists
  • users of social networks
  • all citizens looking for reliable information about Russia and Ukraine

What?

This lexicon consolidates chronic lie narratives that have been refuted by several fact-checking organizations.

It is available in English and German. It can be read on the internet or downloaded as a PDF or epub, the latter can be read aloud by a screen-reader.

The encyclopedia is organized by subject area with one or more chapters with one or more sections.

The quality of the content is monitored by our partners, see in the appendix under Team & Partners.

Why?

A hallmark of propaganda is its ability to blur the lines between fact and fiction and confuse the distinction between truth and lies

Quote from Dierickx and Lindén (2024) who have analyzed various challenges and contexts that fact checkers face. We have also extended this to citizens fighting disinformation:

  • Knowing or finding the facts
  • Know or recognize sources and patterns of propaganda
  • decipher the truth in any specific context
  • find the truth quickly
  • quickly refute the lies (late arriving comments lack visibility)1
  • Scaling rectification to the industrial scale of disinformation dissemination
  • Scaling rectification and outreach against algorithmic bias or even censorship on social networks
  • Scaling rectification across different social networks despite proprietary content management

How?

The Disinformation Dictionary addresses these challenges somewhat by

  • providing curated truths in the context of the russian war in Ukraine
  • teaching about propaganda patterns
  • linking to officially diagnosed and debunked disinfo at EUvsDisinfo
  • finding truth fast via keyword navigation and search function
  • debunking the lies fast by linking or copy-pasting the truths
  • fast implies higher throughput and therefore better scaling2
  • (against algorithmic biases only regulation helps, that enforces transparency and fairness)
  • works uniformly in all social networks3

  1. NAFO solves this by posting graphic memes, which is very quick but can be more easily defamed as non-fact-based. Using memes tends to escalate and prolong discussions and tie up capacity; providing facts tends to silence trolls↩︎

  2. although disinfo scaling is much cheaper unless regulation enforces algorithmic countermeasures↩︎

  3. except for algorithmic dampening of reach when using external links↩︎