Misinformation is false or misleading information that spreads regardless of whether the person sharing it knows it is wrong. It differs from disinformation, which is spread with intent to deceive, though the two often travel the same channels and can be hard to tell apart once a claim is moving quickly through a feed or a busy group chat.
Most misinformation is not an outright fabrication. It is more often a real fact stretched past what the evidence supports, an old story recirculated as if it were new, or a statistic presented without the context that would change how it reads, which makes it considerably harder to spot than a simple, obvious lie.
Recognising misinformation is less about spotting an obvious lie and more about building a habit of pausing before sharing, checking where a claim originated, and asking whether the emotional charge of a post is doing the persuading instead of the evidence, since the two are very often confused for one another in practice.