The Disinformation Company (abbreviated as Disinfo) was a privately held, limited American

publishing company Publishing is the activity of making information, literature, music, software and other content available to the public for sale or for free. Traditionally, the term refers to the creation and distribution of printed works, such as books, newsp ...

until 2012 when it was sold to

Red Wheel/Weiser/Conari Red Wheel Weiser Conari, also known in different periods in its history as RedWheel/Weiser, LLC and Samuel Weiser, Inc., is a book publisher with three imprints: Red Wheel, Weiser Books and Conari Books. It is America's second-largest publisher ...

. It also owned ''Disinformation Books'', which focused on current affairs titles and books exposing alleged

conspiracy theories A conspiracy theory is an explanation for an event or situation that invokes a conspiracy by sinister and powerful groups, often political in motivation, when other explanations are more probable.Additional sources: * * * * The term has a nega ...

, occultism, politics, news oddities, and purported

disinformation Disinformation is false information deliberately spread to deceive people. It is sometimes confused with misinformation, which is false information but is not deliberate. The English word ''disinformation'' comes from the application of the L ...

. It is headquartered in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

, New York. Arguably, its most visible publications to date are ''50 Things You're Not Supposed to Know'' and the ''Everything You Know About ubjectIs Wrong'' series, both by the company's editor-at-large

Russ Kick Russell Charles Kick III (July 20, 1969September 12, 2021) was an American writer, editor, and publisher. Russell Charles Kick III was born on July 20, 1969, in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Early in his career, Kick wrote articles, a column, and a cover ...

History

In 1996,

Tele-Communications Inc. Tele-Communications, Inc. (TCI) was a cable television provider in the United States, and for most of its history was controlled by Bob Magness and John Malone. The company was started in 1958 in Bozeman, Montana as Western Microwave, Inc. and Co ...

(now Comcast) funded a Hollywood-based

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...

initiative responsible for online projects like the

Getty Museum The J. Paul Getty Museum, commonly referred to as the Getty, is an art museum in Los Angeles, California housed on two campuses: the Getty Center and Getty Villa. The Getty Center is located in the Brentwood neighborhood of Los Angeles and fe ...

and an Internet-based political humor soap opera entitled ''Candidate 96''. The initiative launched its own interactive website, featuring the

tag line In entertainment, a tagline (alternatively spelled tag line) is a short text which serves to clarify a thought for, or is designed with a form of, dramatic effect. Many tagline slogans are reiterated phrases associated with an individual, so ...

; "everything you know is wrong". Soon after the site's launch, TCI cancelled funding and support for the site. The founding team kept it going, being nominated for an award for politics in the first Webby Awards ceremony. The Disinformation Company, as it was now known, was then acquired by Razorfish. Eventually, the Disinformation Company became privately held. In addition to publishing books, the company also had a home video division as well as multimedia and Internet projects. In 2000, Disinfo organized DisinfoCon, a 12-hour event featuring Richard Metzger, rock musician Marilyn Manson, underground filmmaker

Kenneth Anger Kenneth Anger (born Kenneth Wilbur Anglemyer, February 3, 1927) is an American underground experimental filmmaker, actor, and author. Working exclusively in short films, he has produced almost 40 works since 1937, nine of which have been grouped ...

, painter Joe Coleman, Douglas Rushkoff,

Mark Pesce Mark D. Pesce ( ; born 1962) is an American-Australian author, researcher, engineer, futurist and teacher. Early life Pesce was born in Everett, Massachusetts in 1962. In September 1980, Pesce attended Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MI ...

Grant Morrison Grant Morrison, MBE (born 31 January 1960) is a Scottish comic book writer, screenwriter, and producer. Their work is known for its nonlinear narratives, humanist philosophy and countercultural leanings. Morrison has written extensively for th ...

Robert Anton Wilson Robert Anton Wilson (born Robert Edward Wilson; January 18, 1932 – January 11, 2007) was an American author, futurist, psychologist, and self-described agnostic mystic. Recognized within Discordianism as an Episkopos, pope and saint, Wilson ...

Todd Brendan Fahey
and others. In 2002, the company produced a four-episode documentary series called ''

Disinformation Disinformation is false information deliberately spread to deceive people. It is sometimes confused with misinformation, which is false information but is not deliberate. The English word ''disinformation'' comes from the application of the L ...

'' (also alternatively titled as ''Disinfo Nation''). In 2008, the Disinformation Company itself was accused of spreading propaganda (such as 9/11 "Truth" material) by Louis Proyect. As of June 17, 2020, the Disinfo.com website was inactive. While the Disinformation Company Ltd. was still listed as the owner, all content was deleted and the domain was for sale.

Documentary films

* '' Disinformation: The Complete Series'' (2004) * '' Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism'' (2004) * '' Uncovered: The Whole Truth About the Iraq War'' (2004) * '' Bush Family Fortunes: The Best Democracy Money Can Buy'' (2004) * '' Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price'' (2005) * '' This Divided State'' (2005) * '' Gay Republicans'' (2005) * '' American Jobs'' (2005) * '' Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers'' (2006) * '' The Big Buy: Tom DeLay's Stolen Congress'' (2006) * '' 9/11: Press for Truth'' (2006) * ''

American Blackout ''American Blackout'' (2006) is a documentary film directed by Ian Inaba. It premiered at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival. The film chronicles the 2002 defeat, and 2004 reelection, of Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney to the U.S. House of Represe ...

'' (2006) * '' Endgame: Blueprint for Global Enslavement'' (2007) * '' Let's All Hate Toronto: A Comic Adventure into Canada's Love/Hate Relationship with Itself'' (2007) * '' War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death'' (2008) * '' The Mindscape of Alan Moore'' (2008) * '' Slacker Uprising'' (2008) * '' New World Order'' (2009) * '' RiP!: A Remix Manifesto'' (2009) * '' Cargo 200'' (2009) * '' Rethink Afghanistan'' (2009)

Books

* '' Turn Off Your Mind: The Mystic Sixties and the Dark Side of the Age of Aquarius'' by

Gary Lachman Gary Joseph Lachman (born December 24, 1955), also known as Gary Valentine, is an American writer and musician. He came to prominence in the mid-1970s as the bass guitarist for rock band Blondie. Since the 1990s, Lachman has written full-time ...

(2003) * '' The Passover Plot: Special 40th Anniversary Edition'' by Hugh J. Schonfield (2005)

References

External links

*
Founder Info
on the

Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...

* ;Articles
Peeking Behind the Curtain of Secrecy
by ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

''
Truth is Stranger Than Science Fiction
by ''

New York Press ''New York Press'' was a free alternative weekly in New York City, which was published from 1988 to 2011. The ''Press'' strove to create a rivalry with the ''Village Voice''. ''Press'' editors claimed to have tried to hire away writer Nat Hent ...

''
DVD REVIEW: Film dissects government's lies en route to war in Iraq.
by '' The America's Intelligence Wire''
The big lie lie: why a warning about "Disinformation" is itself a form of Disinformation
by ''

Skeptic Skepticism, also spelled scepticism, is a questioning attitude or doubt toward knowledge claims that are seen as mere belief or dogma. For example, if a person is skeptical about claims made by their government about an ongoing war then the ...

''
Throw your cake
by '' Red Herring'' {{Webby Awards, cat=Politics+law, year=1997, type=Nominee Companies established in 1996 Conspiracist media