Misinformation, disinformation and malinformation: the difference

The most widely used definitions come from Claire Wardle and Hossein Derakhshan’s 2017 report for the Council of Europe, Information Disorder. They sort false or harmful information by two questions: is it false, and is it meant to harm?

Misinformation.

False information shared without the intent to cause harm. The person sharing it usually believes it.

Disinformation.

False information created or shared knowingly, to cause harm.

Malinformation.

Genuine information used to cause harm, for example private details moved into public view.

The same false claim can be disinformation when it is made and misinformation when it is repeated in good faith. That matters for the response: correcting an honest mistake calls for a clear, sourced answer, while a deliberate falsehood may also call for legal, platform or security steps.

Intent is hard to prove from the outside. A team can usually establish whether a claim is false or disputed long before it can establish why someone made it, which is why a response should rest on the record, not on guesses about motive.

The World Economic Forum’s Global Risks Report 2026 ranks misinformation and disinformation second among global risks over the next two years, after geoeconomic confrontation. It was first in 2024 and 2025.

Wardle and Derakhshan avoided the phrase "fake news" because it lumps these different problems together and has been used as a label for reporting people dislike. Researchers and most newsrooms now use the three terms above instead.

Alethman’s Pramaan flags fast-spreading claims about an organization in the news and gathers the sourced record, without judging anyone’s motive.

Pramaan