Participatory disinformation describes coordinated disinformation campaigns that succeed through decentralized, organic participation rather than top-down coordination alone. In these campaigns, most spreaders are unwitting agents—they sincerely believe the false narratives they amplify and are unaware of their role in a larger disinformation ecosystem. The 2020 U.S. election disinformation campaign, particularly the "Big Lie" claims of electoral fraud, exemplifies this dynamic: politicians, media figures, and millions of everyday citizens organically co-created a campaign that delegitimized the election itself.
Participatory disinformation differs from earlier models of coordinated inauthentic behavior (bots, fake accounts, state-directed trolling) in that it leverages authentic, often prominent actors and grassroots belief propagation. It remains intentional and strategic at its origins—someone seeds the initial false narrative—but gains power through how readily it spreads when it aligns with pre-existing partisan identities and uncertainty. This makes it particularly resistant to platform-level content moderation and fact-checking, since most spreaders are participating in good faith from their perspective.
Key papers
- 2022-starbird-unraveling-the-big-lie-participatory — video keynote on participatory disinformation and the 2020 election
Related topics
- disinformation (broader category)
- computational-propaganda (coordinated campaigns more generally)
- election-interference (electoral disinformation context)
- conspiracy-theories (often the narrative vehicle for participatory campaigns)
