I wasn't confused about your meaning. I was just stating my semantic preference for calling it a worse name as there's more than one definition for many words. Hoaxes, like pranks and /s/Illusions can be fun or bad too. There's nothing fun about a scam. Political weapon is an even better term. Too many people are meh about "politics" but when you add weapon, it's much more threatening.

Entity? Extinction level meteor? Ice age? Regardless hard times are indeed ahead for most of humanity.