The author argues that expansive, vague definitions of 'misinformation' enable researchers and media to portray critics as enabling authoritarianism, rather than engaging with their arguments. He calls for narrower, evidence‑anchored definitions to prevent research and policy from becoming tools of rhetorical guilt‑by‑association.
— If 'misinformation' labels are used as partisan cudgels, they chill legitimate critique and corrode standards for truth‑seeking across science, media, and policy.
2026.01.05
82% relevant
Heath warns against criminalizing 'climate misinformation' while elites themselves propagate overstatement; this maps directly to the idea that broad, vague misinformation labels can be used as rhetorical or legal weapons against critics.
2026.01.04
78% relevant
The OSG advisory is an authoritative government framing that both legitimizes intervention against health falsehoods and risks being used politically; it directly connects to the existing idea about how the label 'misinformation' can be weaponized—the Surgeon General's public call gives institutional heft to that label and therefore to potential downstream uses or abuses.
el gato malo
2025.12.29
85% relevant
The article advances the same claim: powerful institutions will label or preemptively discredit future disclosures as 'misinformation' or politically motivated 'prebunks' to blunt accountability. It even cites a named actor (Ursula von der Leyen/the European Commission speech) as an example of official prebunk rhetoric, directly connecting to the existing idea about expansive 'misinformation' labels being used to delegitimize critics.
2025.10.07
100% relevant
Time Magazine cited the author’s essays as part of an authoritarian 'cultivation' strategy for undermining misinformation research, which he rebuts.
2024.06.05
60% relevant
The authors caution against sweeping public narratives that overstate average exposure and algorithmic causation; that maps onto the existing concern that vague 'misinformation' labels can be used rhetorically to silence dissent—Nature argues for precise definitions and better evidence before policy, which would constrain such weaponization.