Dear Editor:

Some people believe anything they see in print. At one point in time “in print” meant in a letter, a book or in a newspaper. We believed and fought (Darwin) science, depending on the results. Mankind has discovered more details in science such as the DNA mapping gathered by scientists throughout the world, global climate scientific results, cancer treatments, value of vaccinations and technology. Political elections and governance have introduced a number of ways to create doubt in order to produce fiction as if it were fact.

The problem is most of us do not know the difference or how to tell the difference between disinformation and misinformation, much less between news and fake news. Somewhere between 1980 and 2016 a variety of scientific “facts” were being produced through a process of disinformation utilizing Heritage Foundations throughout the country.

The term disinformation was derived from a Russian defector, Ladislav Bittman, a disinformation practitioner. We learned that this practice, like propaganda, was designed to manipulate audiences at the rational level by either discrediting conflicting information or supporting false conclusions. In contrast, misinformation was not the result of a deliberate act, but came as a mistake in understanding, making corrections of misspeaking easy. To deceive others it was common that factual information was combined to hide truth. Disorder during the fall of the Soviet Union revealed archival and other documentary information to confirm what the defectors had revealed. Later, Yevgeny Primakov admitted an elaborate disinformation campaign beginning in 1985 to influence world opinion to believe that the United States had invented the AIDS virus. Someone pointed a similar finger at China for inventing climate change.

Public radio’s visit to Macedonia revealed the primary source of fake news. University students and other townspeople were using copy and paste ups of factual news combined with disinformation or outright fabricated news that garnered them a lot of extra money. Facebook has a problem in its digital grid and citizens have a problem in differentiating fake news from factual news.

Propaganda, disinformation and fake news all aim to confuse and manipulate public opinion. It was first developed in and used by Russia beginning in the 1960s. Is that a factor at play or not?

Jarryl Larson

Edgecomb