Firehose of falsehood
Etymology
A term popularized by a 2016 RAND Corporation report analyzing Russian propaganda, using the vivid image of a firehose — overwhelming pressure and volume. "Falsehood" joins Old English "fals" (from Latin "falsus") with "-hood."
noun phrase · /FYRE-hohz uv FALS-hood/
A propaganda technique that floods audiences with a high volume of rapid, repetitive, and often contradictory falsehoods.
What it names
A modern disinformation strategy that wins not by being believed but by exhausting the very idea of truth.
Example
The firehose of falsehood works by drowning fact-checkers — by the time one lie is refuted, ten more have spread.
Related idea
The Gish gallop is its debate-stage cousin — burying an opponent under too many claims to answer; the firehose of falsehood is the same tactic scaled to whole populations.