Malinformation
Information that is true, or based on something true, but used to cause harm: a private fact made public, a real document released out of context, a genuine photograph attached to a false caption. The third corner of the information-disorder taxonomy.
Wardle and Derakhshan coined the term in their 2017 report to fill a gap. Misinformation and disinformation are both false; a great deal of harmful content is not. The leaked private email, the doxxed address, the real quotation stripped of the sentence that explained it, and the authentic photograph captioned as something else are all true in the narrow sense and all weaponized.
The category overlaps heavily with the techniques in the Framing and omission family. Quoting Out Of Context is malinformation by construction: the words are real. Leak And Plant often is, when the leaked material is genuine and the harm is in the timing and selection. Half Truth is the general form, a true statement that leaves out what would change its meaning.
Because the content is true, fact-checking cannot catch malinformation, and a correction that says "this is real" can make matters worse. The defense is contextual: ask what has been left out, who chose the moment, and whether the harm is the point.
Compare disinformation and misinformation.
Sources
- Wardle, Claire, and Hossein Derakhshan. Information Disorder: Toward an Interdisciplinary Framework for Research and Policymaking. Strasbourg: Council of Europe, 2017. https://rm.coe.int/information-disorder-toward-an-interdisciplinary-framework-for-researc/168076277c