Disinformation isn't just lies; it's a specific kind of false information that's deliberately intended to mislead, i.e. propaganda. It's more descriptive than just saying that someone lies. The difference is in intent.

"Lies" is much more blunt force.

A lie is typically a statement or story that is provably false.

Disinformation, on the other hand, has a more precise meaning - it is a deliberate pattern of lies, exaggerations, innuendo, unsupported opinions and half-truths, usually intended to change public opinion. The difference between disinformation and propaganda usually comes down to whether or not it is a government vs. non-government entity that is spreading the disinformation campaign.

The reason for the distinction is primarily because we have taken as "ground truth" the statement that all politicians lie, something that in practice is usually not the case, primarily because it is fairly easy to rebut such lies publicly. Trump came to power initially as someone who wasn't a politician, and that as a consequence you could trust him. This was only feasible because the media generally didn't call him out on his lies early on and normalized them, which in turn corrupted many of these media because normalization brought novelty and ratings. We have reached the point, however, where many media outlets are no longer trusted because they have ceased even trying to deliver truth, and instead have become simply conduits for one very narrow viewpoint.

What journalists are referring to when they say disinformation is an intentional, organized effort to lie to the public about a topic.

For example, there is a MAGA disinformation campaign to create the illusion that J6 was a protest rather than an insurrection.

There is a disinformation campaign that FEMA can't be trusted to handle emergencies.

Disinformation goes beyond simply lying. It might include logical fallacies like false equivalence or generalization, or personal anecdotes from overrepresented demographics. It might take the form of many little lies being created to support the disinformation.

For example: "Walking through the Capitol is not an act of insurrection." Of course it's not, but walking through the Capitol without permission during the counting of the electoral votes, under the prompting of a traitor seeking to challenge the counting of said votes, IS an act of insurrection.

Or: "More people were killed during the George Floyd protests than during J6." Of course, but this statement neglects that they were innocent protestors killed by fascists. This is a fallacy of switching definitions to compare legal protest with insurrection. It's also false equivalence because every officer murdered during J6 was during a single event compared with a whole summer of protests.

So disinformation seeks to further a lie, but it's also about minimizing, recharacterizing, or equivocating the truth under the guise of "free speech".

And good luck explaining this to a braindead MAGAT. Their identity is so tied to misinformation that it cannot be separated or even consider another viewpoint.

to our vaunted legion of yappers and scribblers being unable to use the L word. Fucking cowards.

Also, the word Tolerance. I absolutely loathe the usage of THAT word to suggest the word "Inclusion" in Liberal vernacular which began about 20 years ago. It was totally weird to use that word to mean something else then, and it's grating to my sense of continuity in meaning now.
Tolerance always meant putting up with bad behavior. It was never meant to define inclusiveness before the trend began.

I still scratch my head as to why that word was chosen at the time and then continued.
Trivial to the extent there are far worse things to worry about.
But it grates none the less.