Editorial Team Opinion: Let’s be clear: the threat of disinformation campaigns isn’t some new internet problem. It’s a very old, very effective tactic that has been systematically gutting public trust and shaping global politics for hundreds of years. We keep ignoring the lessons of media history, and that failure makes us sitting ducks for manipulators today.
Key Takeaways
- Psychological manipulation has been at the core of disinformation for a long time, as seen in campaigns during the American Revolution and World War I.
- Sensationalist journalism can directly start a war, just look at the Spanish-American War in 1898, which was fueled by a press that put newspaper sales over facts.
- Modern propaganda is built on old foundations. The post-WWI “stab-in-the-back” myth is a perfect example of how a deliberately constructed false narrative works.
- If you want a blueprint for spotting and fighting modern disinformation, just study how media has been systematically exploited in the past.
- Fighting back requires more than one tool. We need to combine critical media literacy with a press committed to verifiable facts to have any hope of an informed public.
“Aston University senior academic Dr Rasha Kassem said AI now played a "major role" in online fraud because things that used to be technically difficult were now "super easy, accessible and free".”
The Echoes of Revolution: Early Manipulations of Public Opinion
It’s a dangerous mistake to think disinformation is a product of the digital age. Spreading lies to sway the public is a time-honored, and destructive, tradition. Just look at the American Revolution. The pamphleteers and colonial newspapers weren’t objective reporters. They were full-on participants in the fight, frequently exaggerating what the British did and painting colonial resistance in the most heroic light possible. Paul Revere’s famous engraving of the Boston Massacre, which shows an orderly line of soldiers firing on a peaceful, innocent crowd, is a masterclass in early propaganda. While people definitely died, the historical record points to a much more chaotic and confusing brawl, not the clear-cut slaughter Revere depicted. The goal wasn’t factual accuracy. It was to hit an emotional nerve and stir up anti-British anger. This was early propaganda, pure and simple, using the new power of print to get people behind a cause. Fast forward a bit to the Napoleonic Wars, and you see the same thing. The British and French presses were locked in a nonstop war of words, making up myths and smearing each other. Napoleon Bonaparte was a genius at controlling his own image, using official government bulletins and commissioning grand paintings to make himself look like an invincible military mastermind. His enemies, of course, painted him as a bloodthirsty tyrant. This constant firehose of competing stories, most of them completely detached from what was actually happening, shows that the information war has always been fought right alongside the real one. And the techniques are the same ones we see today in 2026: exaggeration, demonizing the other side, and conveniently leaving out key facts. This history isn’t just for a textbook. It’s a field guide to how manipulators operate right now.
Yellow Journalism and the Sinking of the USS Maine
If you want a clear, devastating example of disinformation from media history causing real-world harm, look at how “yellow journalism” pushed the U.S. into the Spanish-American War in 1898. The rivalry between William Randolph Hearst’s New York Journal and Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World was out of control, a daily battle of shocking headlines and made-up stories all designed to sell more papers. When the American battleship USS Maine blew up in Havana Harbor, killing 260 sailors, nobody knew why. But the yellow press didn’t wait for evidence to start pointing fingers at Spain. Hearst supposedly told his man in Cuba, Frederic Remington, “You furnish the pictures and I’ll furnish the war.” Whether he actually said it or not, that quote captures the journalistic spirit of the time perfectly. Newspapers ran wild, unsubstantiated stories claiming Spanish sabotage. Headlines screamed, “Remember the Maine! To Hell with Spain!” This constant, inflammatory drumming, all based on emotional appeals and zero evidence, sent the American public into a war-hungry frenzy. A few weeks later, the United States was at war. The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) often points to the Spanish-American War as the textbook case of media manipulation leading directly to military conflict without any real justification. A 2018 CFR report ([www.cfr.org/blog/yellow-journalism-and-spanish-american-war-lessons-today](https://www.cfr.org/blog/yellow-journalism-and-spanish-american-war-lessons-today)) confirms how powerful media narratives can be in forcing political action. The lesson is pretty stark. When the media cares more about sensationalism than truth, the result can be catastrophic.
The Great War’s Psychological Front: Crafting Consent and Dissent
During World War I, government-sponsored propaganda got a lot bigger and a lot smarter. Realizing they had to get entire countries on board for a total war, all sides set up their own propaganda departments. The British created the War Propaganda Bureau at Wellington House, which churned out stories to make Germany look like a monster, keep morale up at home, and convince neutral countries like the U.S. to join their side. They spread tales, many of them completely fabricated, about German atrocities in Belgium. Even with no real proof, these stories worked wonders for turning the world against Germany. At the same time, the Germans were running their own propaganda machine, though they were generally less successful with it in the English-speaking world. All the posters, films, and pamphlets showed that governments understood that controlling the narrative was just as important as controlling territory on a map. After the war, the infamous “stab-in-the-back” myth (the *Dolchstoßlegende*) took hold in Germany, pushed by nationalist and conservative groups. This lie, which blamed the army’s defeat on politicians and civilians back home, was poison in the Weimar Republic’s bloodstream, creating the perfect environment for extremist groups and eventually helping the Nazis take power. This deeply damaging piece of disinformation wasn’t an accident. By carefully pushing this false story to shift blame, they showed how propaganda can be used to tear down a democracy from the inside long after a war is over. Looking back, you can see these weren’t just random events. They were coordinated campaigns to control what people thought, basically, an early version of information warfare. You can even see the same patterns in the Cold War, where both the U.S. and the Soviet Union ran huge psychological operations, using everything from radio broadcasts like “Radio Free Europe” and “Radio Liberty” to covertly placed media stories to win global opinion. That whole ideological fight, waged with information, just proves that today’s disinformation problems are the latest version of a very old game.
Countering the Contemporary Avalanche: A Call to Critical Literacy
History shows us a clear pattern. Disinformation takes root wherever critical thinking and media literacy are weak, and where people have stopped trusting institutions. The tools have changed, sure, we’ve gone from pamphlets to AI-generated content, but the psychological buttons being pushed are exactly the same. Yes, modern lies spread with terrifying speed and scale, but the playbook is ancient: hit them with emotion and appeal to their tribe. You could argue that with today’s fragmented media, no single campaign could have the same impact that yellow journalism did. I think that’s wrong. The sheer flood of content, combined with smart targeting algorithms, just creates thousands of tiny echo chambers that hammer home false beliefs with brutal efficiency. The impact is more insidious, more fragmented, and far more personal. So what do we do? The solution isn’t some new tech. It’s getting back to basics: critically engaging with the information we consume. We absolutely have to demand more transparency from platforms, but at the same time we have to build up our own media literacy skills. That means teaching people, starting when they’re young, how to spot a logical fallacy, how to check a source, how to see when their emotions are being played, and how to tell the difference between an opinion and a hard fact. It means pulling back the curtain on the business models that reward division and sensationalism. We have to make a conscious shift as a society to value verifiable truth more than a good story. If we don’t, we’re doomed to ignore history and keep falling for the same old scams in a new digital wrapper. It’s on every one of us to see these historical patterns for what they are and fight the urge to believe easy, dangerous lies. The past is an instruction manual for the present. Studying these historical campaigns gives us a direct look at human gullibility and the constant need for vigilance. History gives us a clear mission: build up our critical media literacy as the main line of defense against the ever-present threat of disinformation campaigns.
What’s the main difference between old and new disinformation?
The core psychology is the same, but the big difference is speed, scale, and targeting. Historical campaigns used print media or radio, reaching a broad audience slowly. Modern campaigns use social media algorithms and artificial intelligence to hit millions of people instantly with personalized, targeted content.
How did yellow journalism actually change history?
By putting sensationalism over facts, it directly shaped public opinion and pushed politicians into action. The most prominent example is how it riled up Americans to support the Spanish-American War in 1898 with inflammatory and often fake reports about the sinking of the USS Maine.
Is government propaganda the same as disinformation?
Yes, government-sponsored propaganda very often uses disinformation as a key tactic. This involves spreading information that is deliberately false or misleading. Good examples are the British War Propaganda Bureau’s efforts in WWI to demonize Germany or the “stab-in-the-back” myth that was pushed in post-war Germany.
How was disinformation used in the American Revolution?
It was a key part of the revolutionary effort. Biased pamphlets and famous images, like Paul Revere’s one-sided engraving of the Boston Massacre, were designed to exaggerate events and whip up anti-British anger, showing the power of media to build support for a cause.
Based on history, what’s the best way to fight disinformation now?
History’s biggest lesson is that the most effective defense is strong critical media literacy. If we can equip people with the skills to identify misinformation, verify what they’re seeing, and resist emotional manipulation, we create a public that’s much more resilient and harder to fool.
