In 2021, a theory began to circulate among opponents of COVID-19 vaccination. They claimed that the shots developed by Moderna and Pfizer were a form of “gene therapy,” a treatment that would alter a patient’s DNA. In corners of the internet already predisposed to distrust the government, speculation linking vaccines to government social control proliferated.1
The claim was based on the novel mRNA technology that enabled the vaccines to be produced with unprecedented speed. The shots contained genetic instructions (mRNA) for producing a SARS-CoV-2 protein, but they do not alter the human genome. Still, the appearance of the word “genetic material” in connection with the vaccine was enough to make some people suspicious. Often, content creators would claim to be “just stating facts” and stick to easily provable but misleading claims. They would rely on their followers to take this decontextualized information and construct larger stories that went beyond the verifiable. The facts were true, the logical leaps between them were not.
Those who advanced this idea were often able to spread falsehoods using the truth. It is true that the vaccines contained genetic material. It is also true that they are based on a technology that had not previously been deployed at this scale. These are not hugely concerning problems on their own, but when presented to people who are already looking for reasons not to get vaccinated, they can seem highly ominous. Audiences made the leap from “genetic material” to “gene therapy,” and social media facilitated the spread of the harmful theory rapidly around the world.2
This is a serious risk for public-facing organizations. AI, social media, and a lack of trust in institutions have allowed ominous suggestions of wrongdoing to hurt just as much as clear misdeeds. For organizational leaders today, it is no longer enough to just counter the spread of false information. Partial and distorted truths can be just as damaging to reputations.
Misinformation, Disinformation, and Malinformation
Over the last decade, governments, NGOs, and corporations have made enormous efforts to address mis- and disinformation. Broadly, misinformation refers to incorrect statements, regardless of who circulates them and why. Disinformation typically refers to misinformation spread with harmful intent. Yet as we saw in the case of the mRNA vaccines, true statements can sometimes be used maliciously.
This last category is called “malinformation,” and it represents a rising source of reputational harm that business leaders must be aware of. Malinformation can be any type of true content used to cause harm, from a decontextualized fact to a leak of private knowledge. In certain cases, it can be just as harmful as an outright falsehood.
The Old and the New
True-but-misleading content has a long history in Western society. No less a figure than Joseph Pulitzer (for whom the journalism prize is named) pioneered a strategy known as “Yellow Journalism,” in which individual stories were made to seem representative of wider trends through sensational headlines and incessant coverage. William Randolph Hearst, Pulitzer’s rival, built a media empire by deploying the technique. Hearst’s papers featured true stories of crime and corruption, but portrayed them with an intensity that overstated their pervasiveness.3
Modern media has leaned into similar tactics. Overstated titles and worrying framing are rewarded by the algorithms of social networks, as users share stories that grab their attention. This means that news organizations have a strong incentive to sensationalize their reporting and mislead their readers.
In the early 2010s, for instance, certain news media created the impression of a “crime wave,” despite the fact that crime rates were decreasing in almost every category.4 The organizations that promoted this narrative did not lie; they simply covered real crimes at a disproportionate pace, without providing the statistics that would contextualize their story. Interestingly, 11% of voters in the 2022 United States midterm elections said that crime was the most important issue in their vote, a share large enough to significantly shift election results.5
What’s different about malinformation in our day, however, is the enormous variety of its sources. The same algorithms that push established media towards sensationalism also encourage everyday people to spread outlandish conspiracy theories. An X post making misleading claims can be seen by millions of people before anyone corrects it. And, of course, any retraction will only reach a small portion of the people who saw the original claim. This means that modern organizations must contend with vastly more voices than they can keep track of.
The Outlook
As long as mass media exist, malinformation will continue to be a problem. Communications technology amplifies the pace at which information hazards accumulate and must be combated. Meanwhile, social media allows people to filter out information they don’t want to hear. The recommendation algorithms that shape our experience on these platforms show us content similar to what we already like. It is all too easy to fall into a rabbit hole without trying.
More fundamentally, the problem of malinformation traces back to a deeply human reflex: we filter information based on how it fits with our previous assumptions — confirmation bias, as the behavioral science community calls it. The reason we draw the wrong conclusions from decontextualized facts is to make them fit with narratives we have already established. It’s a necessary response to the flood of information we receive and our limited ability to process it. If we believed or disbelieved everything we heard, we wouldn’t be able to navigate our complex world.
Organizations should treat communication as a matter of trust rather than simple accuracy. Every message can be reinterpreted once it leaves their control, so leaders must consider how their statements might be taken out of context and ensure clarity from the outset. Responsibility now means providing enough background for audiences to understand not only what is true, but why it matters. When errors occur, openness and timely correction strengthen credibility more than silence ever can. Institutions that communicate transparently and anticipate misunderstanding will build lasting trust and resilience in an environment where even accurate information can mislead.
