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The Firehose of Falsehood Propaganda Model

When reality is not a shared terrain but a shattered mirror.

Jerry Silfwer
by Jerry Silfwer

Cover photo: @jerrysilfwer

tl:dr;
The firehose of falsehood propaganda model is not only a communications tactic; it is an engineered collapse of shared reality, executed at scale and speed.

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The fire­hose of false­hood is a dan­ger­ous pro­pa­ganda tool.

The fire­hose of false­hood pro­pa­ganda mod­el is not merely a com­mu­nic­a­tions tac­tic; it is a stra­tegic assault—an engin­eered col­lapse of shared real­ity, executed at scale and speed. 

It does not aim to per­suade in the tra­di­tion­al sense. Instead, it over­whelms, dis­or­i­ents, and corrodes. 

When con­nec­ted with phe­nom­ena like fake news, altern­at­ive facts, and media polar­isa­tion, the full hor­ror of this mod­el emerges: a form of inform­a­tion war­fare whose tar­get is not merely truth, but the very idea that truth mat­ters.

Here we go:

The Firehose of Falsehood

The fire­hose of false­hood is a mod­ern pro­pa­ganda mod­el iden­ti­fied and named in a 2016 RAND Corporation report by Christopher Paul and Miriam Matthews. 1Paul, C., & Matthews, M. (2016). The Russian “fire­hose of false­hood” pro­pa­ganda mod­el: Why it might work and options to counter it (PE-198-OSD). RAND Corporation. … Continue read­ing

The mod­el describes a Russian-style dis­in­form­a­tion strategy marked by:

  • High volume and mul­tichan­nel output.
  • Rapid, con­tinu­ous, and repet­it­ive messaging.
  • A dis­reg­ard for object­ive truth or consistency.
  • An open­ness to mul­tiple con­tra­dict­ory narratives.

In con­trast to clas­sic­al pro­pa­ganda — focused, dis­cip­lined, ideo­lo­gic­ally coher­ent, the fire­hose meth­od aban­dons coher­ence in favour of chaos. It does not seek to con­vert. It seeks to con­fuse and con­tam­in­ate.

Different dis­in­form­a­tion nar­rat­ives tar­get dif­fer­ent ideo­lo­gic­al groups. The res­ult is that people no longer dis­agree on inter­pret­a­tions — they dis­agree on facts. This under­mines social cohe­sion and demo­crat­ic delib­er­a­tion, frag­ment­ing soci­ety into isol­ated epi­stem­ic tribes.

Infamously coined by Kellyanne Conway, the Orwellian concept “altern­at­ive facts” reflects the epi­stem­ic frag­ment­a­tion that res­ults from fire­hose tac­tics. In the fire­hose paradigm, there is no need for con­sensus facts — every­one gets their own real­ity. 2Silfwer, J. (2017, April 27). “Alternative Facts” is Newspeak. Doctor Spin | The PR Blog. https://​doc​tor​spin​.net/​a​l​t​e​r​n​a​t​i​v​e​-​f​a​c​ts/

Once the mod­el has suc­cess­fully pol­luted the inform­a­tion space, con­cepts like Lügenpresse (“lying press”) or “fake news” can pree­mpt­ively dis­cred­it any fact-based journ­al­ism. Audiences are inocu­lated against cor­rec­tion — “If the press says it, it’s false by defin­i­tion.” 3Silfwer, J. (2025, March 25). From Lügenpresse to Fake News. Doctor Spin | the PR Blog. https://​doc​tor​spin​.net/​f​a​k​e​-​n​e​ws/

The strategy is not to con­vince you that one thing is true. It’s to make you doubt that any­thing is true.

Characteristics of the Firehose of Falsehood

Let’s exam­ine the ele­ments of the fire­hose of false­hood pro­pa­ganda model:

  • High volume and mul­tichan­nel dis­tri­bu­tion. Disinformation is spread across state TV, social media bots, paid influ­en­cers, fake news sites, com­ment sec­tions, memes, and YouTube chan­nels. It often includes repeat­ing key phrases, visu­als, and slo­gans, echo­ing clas­sic con­di­tion­ing techniques.
  • Rapid, con­tinu­ous, and repet­it­ive. The mod­el thrives on speed. Corrections and fact-checks arrive too late to mat­ter. It is designed to out­pace and out­pro­duce defend­ers of truth. Volume + speed = cog­nit­ive over­load, redu­cing the brain’s abil­ity to assess credibility.
  • No com­mit­ment to truth or con­sist­ency. Contradiction is a fea­ture, not a bug. The goal is to destabil­ise trust, not cla­ri­fy nar­rat­ives. As Orwell might put it, it’s not about mak­ing you believe lies — it’s about break­ing your inner compass.
  • Narrative plur­al­ism (weapon­ised post­mod­ern­ism). Multiple false­hoods — often mutu­ally con­tra­dict­ory — are spread sim­ul­tan­eously. This cre­ates nar­rat­ive relativ­ism, where people are no longer sure what’s real and retreat to their tribes or remain passive.

And yes, this Russia-inspired pro­pa­ganda approach shares many char­ac­ter­ist­ics with the muzzle velo­city PR strategy for­mu­lated by Steve Bannon as one of Donald Trump’s closest advisers. 4Silfwer, J. (2025, February 8). The Muzzle Velocity PR Strategy. Doctor Spin | The PR Blog. https://​doc​tor​spin​.net/​m​u​z​z​l​e​-​v​e​l​o​c​i​t​y​-​p​r​-​s​t​r​a​t​e​gy/

The Goals of the Propaganda Model

The fire­hose mod­el pro­duces and thrives on “fake news,” but unlike clas­sic­al mis­in­form­a­tion, the sheer velo­city and mul­ti­pli­city make refut­a­tion futile. 

The mod­el has four main goals:

  • Diffusion. The mod­el aims to flood the zone with so much con­flict­ing inform­a­tion that audi­ences aban­don dis­cern­ing truth altogether.
  • Delegitimisation. Targets include journ­al­ists, sci­ent­ists, experts, insti­tu­tions — any­one who claims author­ity over truth.
  • Demoralisation. If every­one is lying, why both­er res­ist­ing? Disorientation leads to inac­tion, which favours the propagandist’s aims.
  • Division. Contradictory mes­sages tail­or-fit to pit dif­fer­ent audi­ences against each oth­er and thus accel­er­ate polar­isa­tion. “Divide and conquer.” 

The fire­hose of false­hood pro­pa­ganda mod­el dove­tails dan­ger­ously with Daniel Kahneman’s System 1 think­ing: fast, emo­tion­al, and lazy. The mod­el over­whelms System 2 — slow, logic­al, effort­ful think­ing. 5Kahneman, D. (2011). Thinking, fast and slow. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Algorithmic Accelerants in the Electronic Age

As mis­in­form­a­tion dom­in­ates dis­course, dis­sent­ers fear social exclu­sion and self-cen­sor­ship, rein­for­cing false major­it­ies. Firehose pro­pa­ganda inflates per­ceived con­sensus—you feel out­numbered even when you’re not.

Platforms like Facebook, YouTube, TikTok, and X (Twitter) can, there­fore, be used as effi­cient deliv­ery sys­tems for the fire­hose model:

  • Algorithms typ­ic­ally favour engage­ment, not truth.
  • Content that sparks strong emo­tion­al reac­tions typ­ic­ally gets rewar­ded with more reach, thus indu­cing self-learn­ing and adapt­ive behaviours.
  • Bots and online trolls are weapon­ised to amp­li­fy social media divi­sion and solid­i­fy echo cham­bers and con­firm­a­tion bias.
  • Memes are used to col­lapse com­plex issues into vir­al slo­gans effectively.

What we have here is not merely a com­mu­nic­a­tion prob­lem — it’s an atten­tion eco­nomy weapon­ised where lies are fast and truths are throttled.

Marshall McLuhan foresaw much of this chaos. The bound­ary between sender and receiv­er col­lapses. Truth becomes per­form­at­ive, vir­al, and emotive, not delib­er­at­ive or empir­ic­al. 6McLuhan, M. (1962). The Gutenberg galaxy: The mak­ing of typo­graph­ic man. University of Toronto Press. 7McLuhan, M. (1964). Understanding media: The exten­sions of man. McGraw-Hill.

McLuhan warned of a glob­al vil­lage where retrib­al­isa­tion occurs — not through con­sensus, but through echo cham­bers that deep­en group identity. 

Falsehoods as a Self-Replicating Virus

The fire­hose of false­hood is not just a Kremlin tool or a rel­ic of 20th-cen­tury pro­pa­ganda. It is the inform­a­tion­al weapon of our time — a way to make the pub­lic’s sense of real­ity implode.

But the mod­el’s “bril­liance” lies not in con­vin­cing people of false­hoods. It is in con­vin­cing people that truth itself is obsol­ete. In this way, it becomes a self-rep­lic­at­ing virus:

  • The fire­hose of false­hood pro­pa­ganda “vir­us” weak­ens our immune sys­tems (trust, crit­ic­al thinking).
  • The fire­hose of false­hood pro­pa­ganda “vir­us” spreads through social vec­tors (memes, influencers).
  • The fire­hose of false­hood pro­pa­ganda “vir­us” rewrites our soci­et­al DNA (beliefs, identities).

To fight it, we must not merely debunk indi­vidu­al false­hoods; we must reaf­firm the vir­tue of truth-seek­ing as a social good, or sur­render to a world where real­ity is no longer a shared ter­rain but a shattered mirror.

Learn more: The Firehose of Falsehood Propaganda Model

The Muzzle Velocity PR Strategy 

Steve Bannon is a far-right polit­ic­al strategist, media exec­ut­ive, and former chief strategist to Donald Trump. A key archi­tect of Trump’s 2016 pres­id­en­tial vic­tory, Bannon lever­aged pop­u­list, nation­al­ist, and anti-estab­lish­ment rhet­or­ic to mobil­ise dis­af­fected voters.

Steve Bannon - Breitbart - Cambridge Analytica - Fake News - Muzzle Velocity
Steve Bannon. (Credit: Wikipedia.)

Here’s what Steve Bannon told PBS “Frontline” in 2019:

Steve Bannon: The oppos­i­tion party is the media. And the media can only, because they’re dumb and they’re lazy, they can only focus on one thing at a time…

All we have to do is flood the zone. Every day we hit them with three things. They’ll bite on one, and we’ll get all of our stuff done. Bang, bang, bang. These guys will nev­er — will nev­er be able to recov­er. But we’ve got to start with muzzle velo­city. So it’s got to start, and it’s got to ham­mer, and it’s got to —

Michael Kirk: What was the word?

Bannon: Muzzle velo­city.

As the exec­ut­ive chair­man of Breitbart News, Bannon helped shape the alt-right’s influ­ence on Republican polit­ics. In the White House, Bannon pushed “America First” policies, clashed with estab­lish­ment Republicans, and was instru­ment­al in Trump’s hard­line immig­ra­tion stance and eco­nom­ic nationalism. 

However, Bannon’s ten­ure was short-lived — he was ous­ted in August 2017 fol­low­ing intern­al power struggles.

Despite fall­ing out with Trump (who later called him “Sloppy Steve”), Bannon remained an influ­en­tial voice in right-wing polit­ics, back­ing nation­al­ist move­ments glob­ally and facing leg­al trouble, includ­ing an indict­ment for fraud related to a bor­der wall fun­drais­ing campaign.

Donald Trump: Flood the Zone

According to Ezra Klein, a New York Times colum­nist and host of The Ezra Klein Show pod­cast, Bannon’s muzzle velo­city PR strategy is in full effect for the first two weeks of Donald Trump’s second term.

“Muzzle velo­city. Bannon’s insight here is real. Focus is the fun­da­ment­al sub­stance of demo­cracy. It is par­tic­u­larly the sub­stance of oppos­i­tion. People largely learn of what the gov­ern­ment is doing through the media — be it main­stream media or social media. If you over­whelm the media — if you give it too many places it needs to look, all at once, if you keep it mov­ing from one thing to the next — no coher­ent oppos­i­tion can emerge. It is hard to even think coher­ently.

Donald Trump’s first two weeks in the White House fol­lowed Bannon’s strategy like a script. The flood is the point. The over­whelm is the point. The mes­sage wasn’t in any one exec­ut­ive order or announce­ment. It was in the cumu­lat­ive effect of all of them. The sense that this is Trump’s coun­try now. This is his gov­ern­ment now.“
Source: Inside Story 8Klein, E. (2025, February 7). Don’t believe him. Inside Story. https://​insidestory​.org​.au/​d​o​n​t​-​b​e​l​i​e​v​e​-​h​im/

An old pub­lish­er adage goes:

“If it bleeds, it leads.“
What, then, if everything bleeds?

According to Clay Shirky, an American writer, con­sult­ant, and teach­er on the social and eco­nom­ic effects of Internet tech­no­lo­gies and journ­al­ism, there is no inform­a­tion over­load—only fil­ter fail­ure. 9Asay, M. (2025). Shirky: Problem is fil­ter fail­ure, not info over­load. CNET. https://​www​.cnet​.com/​c​u​l​t​u​r​e​/​s​h​i​r​k​y​-​p​r​o​b​l​e​m​-​i​s​-​f​i​l​t​e​r​-​f​a​i​l​u​r​e​-​n​o​t​-​i​n​f​o​-​o​v​e​r​l​o​ad/

Can estab­lished media get flooded to the point of failure?

Media Logic and Filter Failure

Classic media logic is hypo­thes­ised to influ­ence the news media in the fol­low­ing ways: 10Nord, L., & Strömbäck, J. (2002, January). Tio dagar som skakade världen. En stud­ie av medi­ernas beskrivningar av ter­ror­at­tack­erna mot USA och kri­get i Afghanistan hösten 2001. … Continue read­ing

  • Aggravation. Due to media logic, the news media will exag­ger­ate events, con­cepts, and ideas to make them seem more severe or dan­ger­ous than they are.
  • Simplification. Due to media logic, the news media will dumb down events, con­cepts, and ideas to make them seem more under­stand­able than they are.
  • Polarisation. Due to media logic, the news media por­trays events, con­cepts, and ideas as more conflicting/​provocative than they are.
  • Intensification. Due to media logic, the news media will sen­sa­tion­al­ise events, con­cepts, and ideas to make them more irres­ist­ible than they are.
  • Concreteness. Due to media logic, news media will report events, con­cepts, and ideas more straight­for­wardly than they are.
  • Personalisation. Due to media logic, the news media will over­em­phas­ise the role of named indi­vidu­als in con­junc­tion with events, con­cepts, and ideas.
  • Stereotypisation. Due to media logic, the news media frames events, con­cepts, and ideas as more aligned with con­ven­tion­al perceptions/​opinions than they are.

In Steve Bannon’s muzzle velo­city PR strategy, flood­ing the news means hav­ing the news media choke on its media logic.

The Triangulation PR Strategy

Donald Trump’s pres­id­ency is an extraordin­ary case study. Few organ­isa­tions could flood the media the way a sit­ting pres­id­ent can. Striving to influ­ence the medi­a’s agenda is a well-known PR strategy, but tor­pedo­ing the entirety of the tra­di­tion­al news media must be seen as a fringe case.

A ser­i­ous fringe case, but fringe nonetheless.

As a seasoned PR pro­fes­sion­al, I am famil­i­ar with sim­il­ar pub­lic affairs strategies, albeit on smal­ler scales. One such strategy is the tri­an­gu­la­tion PR strategy.

The tri­an­gu­la­tion PR strategy = while the news media and the oppos­i­tion are push­ing their agen­das, a polit­ic­al interest could change the nar­rat­ive by inten­tion­ally leak­ing a “saved” story that will either over­shad­ow com­pet­ing agen­das — or drown out neg­at­ive pub­li­city, even. 

However, as with the muzzle velo­city PR strategy, I would nev­er con­done the tri­an­gu­la­tion PR strategy. Both are card-stack­ing, grey-hat tech­niques used to obfus­cate and confuse.

Steve Bannon, already infam­ous for his role in the Cambridge Analytica scan­dal, still influ­ences the news climate.

If “fake news” was part one, muzzle velo­city is part two.

Learn more: The Muzzle Velocity PR Strategy

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Annotations
1 Paul, C., & Matthews, M. (2016). The Russian “fire­hose of false­hood” pro­pa­ganda mod­el: Why it might work and options to counter it (PE-198-OSD). RAND Corporation. https://​www​.rand​.org/​p​u​b​s​/​p​e​r​s​p​e​c​t​i​v​e​s​/​P​E​1​9​8​.​h​tml
2 Silfwer, J. (2017, April 27). “Alternative Facts” is Newspeak. Doctor Spin | The PR Blog. https://​doc​tor​spin​.net/​a​l​t​e​r​n​a​t​i​v​e​-​f​a​c​ts/
3 Silfwer, J. (2025, March 25). From Lügenpresse to Fake News. Doctor Spin | the PR Blog. https://​doc​tor​spin​.net/​f​a​k​e​-​n​e​ws/
4 Silfwer, J. (2025, February 8). The Muzzle Velocity PR Strategy. Doctor Spin | The PR Blog. https://​doc​tor​spin​.net/​m​u​z​z​l​e​-​v​e​l​o​c​i​t​y​-​p​r​-​s​t​r​a​t​e​gy/
5 Kahneman, D. (2011). Thinking, fast and slow. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
6 McLuhan, M. (1962). The Gutenberg galaxy: The mak­ing of typo­graph­ic man. University of Toronto Press.
7 McLuhan, M. (1964). Understanding media: The exten­sions of man. McGraw-Hill.
8 Klein, E. (2025, February 7). Don’t believe him. Inside Story. https://​insidestory​.org​.au/​d​o​n​t​-​b​e​l​i​e​v​e​-​h​im/
9 Asay, M. (2025). Shirky: Problem is fil­ter fail­ure, not info over­load. CNET. https://​www​.cnet​.com/​c​u​l​t​u​r​e​/​s​h​i​r​k​y​-​p​r​o​b​l​e​m​-​i​s​-​f​i​l​t​e​r​-​f​a​i​l​u​r​e​-​n​o​t​-​i​n​f​o​-​o​v​e​r​l​o​ad/
10 Nord, L., & Strömbäck, J. (2002, January). Tio dagar som skakade världen. En stud­ie av medi­ernas beskrivningar av ter­ror­at­tack­erna mot USA och kri­get i Afghanistan hösten 2001. ResearchGate; Styrelsen för psyko­lo­giskt förs­var. https://​www​.researchg​ate​.net/​p​u​b​l​i​c​a​t​i​o​n​/​2​7​1​0​1​4​6​2​4​_​T​i​o​_​d​a​g​a​r​_​s​o​m​_​s​k​a​k​a​d​e​_​v​a​r​l​d​e​n​_​E​n​_​s​t​u​d​i​e​_​a​v​_​m​e​d​i​e​r​n​a​s​_​b​e​s​k​r​i​v​n​i​n​g​a​r​_​a​v​_​t​e​r​r​o​r​a​t​t​a​c​k​e​r​n​a​_​m​o​t​_​U​S​A​_​o​c​h​_​k​r​i​g​e​t​_​i​_​A​f​g​h​a​n​i​s​t​a​n​_​h​o​s​t​e​n​_​2​001
Jerry Silfwer
Jerry Silfwerhttps://doctorspin.net/
Jerry Silfwer, alias Doctor Spin, is an awarded senior adviser specialising in public relations and digital strategy. Currently CEO at Spin Factory and KIX Communication Index. Before that, he worked at Whispr Group NYC, Springtime PR, and Spotlight PR. Based in Stockholm, Sweden.

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