propaganda laundering

English

Etymology

By analogy with money laundering.

Noun

propaganda laundering (uncountable)

1. The act of legitimizing misinformation by presenting it in the same manner as widely trusted news sources, in order to increase its exposure and lend it credibility with the target audience; in some cases, the process may be repeated several times, through increasingly trusted sources.
   • 2016 October 3, Daniel Deiss, J.Hawk, Edwin Watson, “NGOs: Grassroots Empowerment or Tool of Information Warfare?”, in South Front‎^[1]:

     Hybrid War Propaganda Laundering … Naturally, these entities are not setting the agenda or calling the shots. They have been assigned a number of roles by the political elites. First of all, they are supposed to engage in veritable “propaganda laundering.” Much as banks provide legitimacy to funds obtained through illegal or immoral means, Bellingcat, White Helmets, and others turn what would otherwise be recognized as propaganda into “breaking news”–style stories that are then run, with reference to the NGO in question rather than the true source of the disinformation, by the mainstream media.

   • 2020 September 20, Alan Greenblatt, “Partisan Websites Fill Media Void”, in Voice of America (VOA) [part of the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM)]‎^[2]:

     In some cases, the sites engage in a sort of propaganda laundering. A story might be barely a rewrite of a politician’s press release. That story, in turn, will be cited by the same politician in a tweet or ad, giving the position credence from a legitimate-sounding news outlet.

   • 2021 December 23, Martin Hála, Filip Jirouš, Ondřej Klimeš, “Borrowed Boats Capsizing: State Security Ties to CCP Propaganda Laundering Rile Czech Public”, in China Brief‎^[3]:

     These developments involving LN [Literární noviny] and [Marek] Hrubec were not the first episodes of propaganda laundering in the Czech Republic.