  Following the 2016 US presidential election and the now overwhelming evidence
of Russian interference, there has been an explosion of interest in the
phenomenon of "fake news". To date, research on false news has centered around
detecting content from low-credibility sources and analyzing how this content
spreads across online platforms. Misinformation poses clear risks, yet research
agendas that overemphasize veracity miss the opportunity to truly understand
the Kremlin-led disinformation campaign that shook so many Americans. In this
paper, we present a definition for disinformation - a set or sequence of
orchestrated, agenda-driven information actions with the intent to deceive -
that is useful in contextualizing Russian interference in 2016 and
disinformation campaigns more broadly. We expand on our ongoing work to
operationalize this definition and demonstrate how detecting disinformation
must extend beyond assessing the credibility of a specific publisher, user, or
story.
