From USA Today: 5 disinformation tactics voters should guard against before Election Day

Could be useful when thinking about this semester's essay topic.

- Click here for the article.  

Basic point:

Here are five tactics of disinformation used by authoritarians to gain power that voters should watch out for in the coming months:

1) Repetition. By repeating a false claim, a disinformer can trick people into believing lies are true.

2) Go big. Another tactic of propagandists is to go big. Everyone tells small lies, the thinking goes, but most people cannot imagine that someone would have the audacity to tell a huge lie

3) The either/or fallacy. A third strategy that authoritarians use to manipulate the public is the either/or fallacy. They use this technique to divide and conquer factions within society.

4) The part/whole fallacy. Another strategy is what debaters refer to as the “part/whole fallacy.” Disinformers look for the most undesirable or controversial policy view of the opposing party and then suggest that the whole party shares the same view.

5) Destroy truth. A final tactic is one that is used by Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. Putin, of course, learned the tradecraft of influence operations in the KGB, the former Soviet intelligence service. The goal of this tactic is to convince people that truth doesn’t matter.