Dictionary.com announces its word of the year. Veuer’s Nick Cardona has the information:
Dictionary.com today announced its word of the year is “misinformation.” The site’s definition of the word is “false information that is spread, regardless of whether there is intent to mislead.”
“The rampant spread of misinformation is really providing new challenges for navigating life in 2018,” said Jane Solomon, linguist-in-residence at Dictionary, to the Associated Press.
According to Solomon, the difference between misinformation and disinformation is important. The latter refers to attempts to mislead. With the word of the year, wrong information is perpetuated by accident or error. However, misinformation can lead to disaster and death, such as violence against Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar, riots in Sri Lanka, and mob violence in India.
Dictionary.com has done a lot of work on defining and updating related terms, including echo chamber, confirmation bias, filter bubble, conspiracy theory, fake news, post-fact, post-truth, homophily, influencer, and gatekeeper.
