Disinformation and Censorship: Informational Strategies of Political Control

• In Event: Censorship and Persuasion

Abstract

Authoritarian governments frequently use disinformation to persuade citizens of their performance in an attempt to gain public support. Yet they also frequently engage in censorship, and its effect on the persuasiveness of disinformation is unclear. I study the government’s interactive use of disinformation and censorship for persuading citizens, by employing a signaling model with some chance of “truth detection” by the population. The model shows that in general, citizens’ optimistic prior beliefs about the state of the world and low chance of truth detection increase the persuasiveness of good-looking disinformation. While citizens with pessimistic prior beliefs are persuaded by the government’s disinformation under a moderate levelof censorship, when censorship is high, even people with optimistic prior beliefs may infer the state of the world and become skeptical of the government’s misinformation. The model also show interesting results regarding truth detection out of governmental control, citizens’ demand for transparency, and the timing of censorship. This paper speaks to the rising literature of misinformation and censorship, and helps explain the variation of these two strategies for political control.

Author

• Handi Li, Emory University