Memefying deception and deceptive memefication: Multimodal deception on social media

Abstract

While online deception has attracted a lot of attention in psychology and communication studies, not much has been written about the formal features of this phenomenon from the vantage point of linguistics or philosophy. Advocating the notion of multimodal deception, this chapter aims to address this gap and takes a pragmatic perspective on social media deception that provides humorous entertainment. The forms of overlap between humour and deception are presented as manifest in social media content. I also indicate several social media practices that are anchored in deception: trolling, scambaiting and some pranks. Next, I explore the impact of social media affordances on the workings of deception in public multi-party interactions. Most importantly, I focus on the acts of reposting and the - intentional or unwitting - repurposing of previously nondeceptive posts so that they may invite false beliefs in the receivers. This sheds new light on the fine distinctions between (purposeful) deception and (unintentional) misleading across social media contexts, as well as the epistemologically grey area. The chapter is illustrated with contemporary examples of Covid-19 mask memes.