---
title: "Disinformation between Knowledge and Ignorance. an"
description: "Building on Andy Clark's extended mind thesis, the paper proposes an externalist account. 21 references."
authors: ["Antonio Lizzadri"]
year: 2026
venue: "Proceedings of the 1st Workshop on Information Disorder (InDor) @ LREC 2026"
source: "https://aclanthology.org/2026.indor-1.10/"
doi: "10.63317/2f3ez5jci7ab"
licence: "CC BY-NC 4.0 (ELRA, LREC proceedings)"
licence_url: "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/"
summary_licence: "Elamur Cosmic License"
canonical: "https://research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/lizzadri-2026-disinformation-between-knowledge-ignorance-epistemological/"
---
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# Disinformation between Knowledge and Ignorance. an Epistemological Comparison

**Authors:** Antonio Lizzadri · **Year:** 2026 · **Venue:** [Proceedings of the 1st Workshop on Information Disorder (InDor) @ LREC 2026](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/venues/indor/) ([Workshop on Information Disorder (InDor) @ LREC 2026](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/venues/indor/2026/)) · **Publisher:** [European Language Resources Association (ELRA)](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/publishers/european-language-resources-association-elra/) · **Licence:** [CC BY-NC 4.0 (ELRA, LREC proceedings)](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/)

**Links:** [Publisher's page](https://aclanthology.org/2026.indor-1.10/) · [PDF](https://aclanthology.org/2026.indor-1.10.pdf) · [DOI 10.63317/2f3ez5jci7ab](https://doi.org/10.63317/2f3ez5jci7ab) · [OpenAlex](https://openalex.org/W7166515684)

**Citations:** 0 citations (OpenAlex, 2026-10-14)

## Summary
This paper examines information disorder through epistemology rather than content classification. The author argues that the influential Wardle and Derakhshan (2017) typology of misinformation, disinformation and malinformation relies on an epistemically neutral notion of information. That notion leaves implicit the two norms that turn belief into knowledge: truth and justification. The typology is also criticised for centring on intent and on isolated claims. It overlooks systemic drivers such as algorithmic amplification, echo chambers and filter bubbles.

Building on Andy Clark's extended mind thesis, the paper proposes an externalist account. On this view, how far a belief counts as true and justified depends on how well it supports successful adaptation to an environment that is ecological, technological and social at once, forming an extended cognitive system. Disinformation is then recast as the state of an "ignorant" collective system: closed, shielded from corrective feedback, and circulating signs that are no longer answerable to reality or to reasons.

The contribution is purely conceptual, with no data or experiments. Its value lies in giving disinformation research, including NLP, a normative foundation.

## Key points
- The paper identifies two weaknesses in the Wardle & Derakhshan (Council of Europe, 2017) framework:
  - it is overly intentionalist;
  - it is content-centric rather than systemic.
- The extended cognitive system is described along three intertwined dimensions: ecological, technological and sociological environments. Search engines, recommender systems and social feeds count as parts of belief-forming processes.
- The author reconciles correspondence truth with truth as adaptive success by citing Putnam (1978). "Semantic relevance" is defined as a sign remaining open to confirmation or disconfirmation by states of affairs.
- NLP is framed as a means of epistemic augmentation, not just detection. The paper points to perspectivism (Frenda et al. 2025) and to uncertainty-based measurement of moderation bias (Urbinati et al. 2025).
- Published in Proceedings of InDor @ LREC 2026, pp. 97–103. This is a theoretical essay with no corpus, model or evaluation.

*Our summary of the paper, in our own words — not its text. The work belongs to its authors; read it at the links above.*

## Institutions

- [Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/universities/universita-cattolica-del-sacro-cuore/) — University, Milan, Italy · 7 works · 33 citations

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## Cite

Cite as: Antonio Lizzadri. 2026. Disinformation between Knowledge and Ignorance. an Epistemological Comparison. Proceedings of the 1st Workshop on Information Disorder (InDor) @ LREC 2026.

The paper itself, not this page. BibTeX from the library's record of the work.

```bibtex
@inproceedings{lizzadri2026disinformation,
  title = {{Disinformation between Knowledge and Ignorance. an Epistemological Comparison}},
  author = {Antonio Lizzadri},
  booktitle = {Proceedings of the 1st Workshop on Information Disorder (InDor) @ LREC 2026},
  year = {2026},
  doi = {10.63317/2f3ez5jci7ab},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.63317/2f3ez5jci7ab}
}
```

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## References

21 references, 0 of them with a card of ours. ↗ leads to the work, «find» searches for one we have no id for yet.

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*Updated 1 November 2026*