What is the difference between fact and factoid?

A factoid, on the other hand, is a small piece of information that may or may not be true. They’re often fun bits of trivia or little-known tidbits about the world that can be interesting to know, but they don’t necessarily have any real substance. Fact: A statement of empirical fact, or something that has actually happened.

What is a factoid in the OED?

The definitions given in the OED are closer to the original meaning of factoid as defined by Norman Mailer in 1973: Factoids..that is, facts which have no existence before appearing in a magazine or newspaper, creations which are not so much lies as a product to manipulate emotion in the Silent Majority.

What is a factoid card?

A factoid is not a snippet of information but an item of unreliable information that is repeated so often that it becomes accepted as fact. Factoid cards could do a wide variety of things, such as freezing an opponent in its tracks or calling in reinforcements.

Are factoids fake news?

Factoids, he explained, were “facts which have no existence before appearing in a magazine or newspaper, creations which are not so much lies as a product to manipulate emotion in the Silent Majority.” In other words, factoids were an early version of fake news: erroneous tidbits that people believed because they seemed like they could be facts.