GMEOW Deception Module

• IRI: https://blackcatinformatics.ca/gmeow/slices/deception
• Tier: core
• Group: core

What This Slice Covers

This slice owns 35 terms and contributes 17 mapping or projection rows. Use it when its terms match the native fact you want to preserve; use the linkage tables to see how those facts leave GMEOW for consumer vocabularies.

Dependencies

• gmeow:slices/attestation
• gmeow:slices/epistemics
• gmeow:slices/events
• gmeow:slices/kernel
• gmeow:slices/observations

Consumers

• Graph-native epistemics of the lie (P16: core by commitment); the claim layer's refutations.

Local Map

Examples

Blame Deflection

• Source: slices/core/deception/examples/blame-deflection.ttl
• GMEOW terms: gmeow:DoxasticStandpointClaim, gmeow:DoxasticState, gmeow:Event, gmeow:Organization, gmeow:Participation, gmeow:Person, gmeow:Proposition, gmeow:claimModality, gmeow:claimOfBelief, gmeow:claimVeridicality
• External prefixes: xsd

# SPDX-FileCopyrightText: 2026 Blackcat Informatics® Inc. <paudley@blackcatinformatics.ca>
# SPDX-License-Identifier: CC-BY-4.0
#
# Worked example: deception is held ≠ projected. A spokesperson
# privately BELIEVES an internal misconfiguration caused an outage, but publicly
# PROJECTS that a third-party vendor did. The lie is a gmeow:Event linking the
# two DoxasticStandpointClaims: gmeow:heldStandpoint (the believed claim) and
# gmeow:projectedStandpoint (the asserted-but-disbelieved one). Falsehood is not
# an isFalse boolean — it is the projected claim carrying gmeow:claimVeridicality
# gmeow:veridicalityUntrue. Nothing here needs a "deception class": ordinary
# claims, an event type, and the held/projected gap do all the work.
#
# Re-grounded for both standpoints are reified as gmeow:DoxasticState
# instances and reported by gmeow:DoxasticStandpointClaim instances via
# gmeow:claimOfBelief. The held belief has high credence; the projected belief has
# low credence — the spokesperson publicly avows the vendor-caused proposition
# while actually disbelieving it. The deception is the divergence between the
# high-credence held state and the low-credence projected state.
@prefix gmeow: <https://blackcatinformatics.ca/gmeow/> .
@prefix ex:    <https://blackcatinformatics.ca/gmeow/examples/deception/> .
@prefix rdfs:  <http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#> .
@prefix xsd:   <http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#> .

# --- The outage being explained, and the two candidate causes.
ex:outage a gmeow:Event ;
    rdfs:label "the March data outage"@en ;
    gmeow:eventType gmeow:eventTypeDestruction ;
    gmeow:eventTime "2026-03-04T02:00:00Z"^^xsd:dateTime ;
    gmeow:eventTemporalFrame gmeow:temporalFrameUTCGregorian .

ex:internalCause a gmeow:Person ; gmeow:name "the on-call engineer (internal)"@en .
ex:vendor a gmeow:Organization ; gmeow:name "Northwind CDN (third party)"@en .

ex:spokesperson a gmeow:Person ; gmeow:name "Comms lead"@en .

# --- Propositions that are the truth-apt contents of the two standpoints.
ex:internalCauseProposition a gmeow:Proposition ;
    rdfs:label "the internal engineer caused the outage"@en .

ex:vendorCauseProposition a gmeow:Proposition ;
    rdfs:label "the third-party vendor caused the outage"@en .

# --- The spokesperson's privately HELD belief state.
ex:spokespersonHeldBelief a gmeow:DoxasticState ;
    rdfs:label "spokesperson's held belief: internal engineer caused the outage"@en ;
    gmeow:epistemicAgent ex:spokesperson ;
    gmeow:doxasticContent ex:internalCauseProposition ;
    gmeow:doxasticClaim ex:heldClaim ;
    gmeow:credence "0.95"^^xsd:decimal .

# --- What the spokesperson privately HOLDS: the internal engineer caused it.
ex:heldClaim a gmeow:DoxasticStandpointClaim ;
    gmeow:vantage ex:spokesperson ;
    gmeow:observedFeature ex:internalCauseProposition ;
    gmeow:claimOfBelief ex:spokespersonHeldBelief ;
    gmeow:claimModality gmeow:unequivocal ;
    gmeow:observationMethod gmeow:methodExpertJudgement .

# --- The spokesperson's publicly PROJECTED belief state: the vendor caused it,
#     but held with very low credence — the spokesperson disbelieves what they
#     avow. The low credence is the structural signature of the lie.
ex:spokespersonProjectedBelief a gmeow:DoxasticState ;
    rdfs:label "spokesperson's projected belief: vendor caused the outage (avowed, low credence)"@en ;
    gmeow:epistemicAgent ex:spokesperson ;
    gmeow:doxasticContent ex:vendorCauseProposition ;
    gmeow:doxasticClaim ex:projectedClaim ;
    gmeow:credence "0.05"^^xsd:decimal .

# --- What the spokesperson publicly PROJECTS: the vendor caused it. Asserted
#     unequivocally, but UNTRUE — the falsehood is a veridicality value on the
#     claim, never an isFalse flag. The claim is backed by the low-credence
#     projected DoxasticState; the gap between the avowed unequivocal claim and
#     the 0.05 credence is the deception.
ex:projectedClaim a gmeow:DoxasticStandpointClaim ;
    gmeow:vantage ex:spokesperson ;
    gmeow:observedFeature ex:vendorCauseProposition ;
    gmeow:claimOfBelief ex:spokespersonProjectedBelief ;
    gmeow:claimModality gmeow:unequivocal ;
    gmeow:claimVeridicality gmeow:veridicalityUntrue ;
    gmeow:observationMethod gmeow:methodExpertJudgement .

# --- The lie: an Event whose held and projected standpoints diverge. That gap
#     IS the deception; the spokesperson is its participant in the deceiver role.
ex:coverStory a gmeow:Event ;
    rdfs:label "the public attribution to the vendor"@en ;
    gmeow:eventType gmeow:eventTypeLie ;
    gmeow:eventTime "2026-03-05T09:00:00Z"^^xsd:dateTime ;
    gmeow:eventTemporalFrame gmeow:temporalFrameUTCGregorian ;
    gmeow:heldStandpoint ex:heldClaim ;
    gmeow:projectedStandpoint ex:projectedClaim ;
    gmeow:hasParticipant ex:spokesperson .

ex:deceiverRole a gmeow:Participation ;
    gmeow:participationEvent ex:coverStory ;
    gmeow:participationParticipant ex:spokesperson ;
    gmeow:participationRole gmeow:roleDeceiver .

Terms

Classes

Properties

Individuals

Linkages

• Rows: 17
• Projection profiles: -
• External vocabularies: crminf, wd

Guide

Deception — the lie as a structural gap, never a truth bit

Slice: https://blackcatinformatics.ca/gmeow/slices/deception · tier: core Graph-native epistemics of the lie: held ≠ projected, standpoint-indexed, with intent kept out of the logic.

Most vocabularies flag falsehood with a boolean. GMEOW refuses (Principles 1 and 12): there is no isFalse, no isDeceptive, and no truth datatype property anywhere in the graph. A falsehood is a frame-relative gmeow:StandpointClaim whose claimModality is gmeow:refuted — settled-false per a designated reference frame — and a deception is not a verdict at all but a structural divergence: an event in which the standpoint a party holds differs from the standpoint they project. The gap is the act.

Three corollaries shape everything below. Intent stays out of the logic — deceptive intent is an attributed, defeasible claim by an assessor, never entailed by the reasoner, coexisting with its denial (Principle 9). Deception kinds are values, never subclasses — each mechanism is one open gmeow:eventType individual (events doctrine), and the deception-specific constraints are SHACL scoped to gmeow:eventTypeDeception (DeceptionEventShape), never global OWL restrictions on gmeow:Event (Principle 3). Licensed falsehood is a safety property — fiction, satire, and sarcasm are structurally distinct from deception, so no pipeline ever "debunks" a novel.

The divergence core

gmeow:eventTypeDeception

The umbrella event kind: a participant projects a standpoint diverging from the one they hold, inducing a false belief. A value individual on an ordinary gmeow:Event — birth, marriage, and lie share one Event class, distinguished by gmeow:eventType alone.

gmeow:heldStandpoint · gmeow:projectedStandpoint

The two sides of the gap, both ordinary gmeow:StandpointClaims attached to the deception event. Non-functional by design: a complex deception may hold several private positions and project different stories to different audiences. The relationship between the pair — negation (lie), implicature (paltering), absence (omission), sharpening (spin) — is what the mechanism inventory below names.

gmeow:deceptiveIntentClaim

Intent as a contestable attribution: a StandpointClaim whose vantage is the assessor (not the deceiver), carrying gmeow:confidence and gmeow:wasAttributedTo. The reasoner never entails intent; an accusation and its denial coexist (Principle 9).

Veridicality

gmeow:ClaimVeridicality · gmeow:claimVeridicality

The veridicality status of a claim, as a value vocabulary linked by the non-functional gmeow:claimVeridicality — multiple assessments from different standpoints coexist. This is an assessment axis, never a global verdict (Principle 11).

gmeow:veridicalityUntrue · gmeow:veridicalityLicensedFalsehood

veridicalityUntrue is frame-relative non-truth — refuted in one standpoint, possibly unequivocal in another. veridicalityLicensedFalsehood is the safety property: fiction, satire, and sarcasm assert nothing because the audience understands the non-truth-asserting frame — licensed, not deceptive (Principle 1).

The mechanism inventory

gmeow:eventTypeLie · gmeow:eventTypePaltering · gmeow:eventTypeOmission · gmeow:eventTypeDistortion · gmeow:eventTypeBullshit · gmeow:eventTypeSelfDeception

Six speech-act mechanisms, each one open gmeow:eventType value distinguished by where the gap lives: projection negates the held claim (lie); a literally true projection implicates a false conclusion (paltering); a held truth is never projected (omission); the projection sharpens or re-frames — a modality shift, probable→unequivocal (distortion); the deceiver projects certainty while holding the bullshit modality, Frankfurt's indifference to truth (bullshit); one agent fills both roles, avowed vs tacit sub-vantage (self-deception). Each maps to the Gricean maxim it violates.

gmeow:MaximViolationType · gmeow:maximViolationType

The Gricean classification axis — Quality (lie, bullshit), Quantity (omission, paltering), Relation (paltering, red herrings), Manner (distortion, obfuscation) — as a closed value vocabulary. Assigning a violation is solver-layer classification (Principle 12).

gmeow:implicates

The paltering hook: relates a deceptive event to the proposition its literally-true statement misleadingly implies. Deliberately without reasoner semantics — implicature is a pragmatics computation, not an OWL entailment (Principle 12).

Carrier deception

gmeow:eventTypeFabrication · gmeow:eventTypeForgery · gmeow:eventTypeImpersonation

Divergence borne by an artifact or identity binding rather than a bare utterance. A fabrication invents a false gmeow:CreativeWork whose projected provenance the deceiver's held standpoint refutes — evidenced by a failed gmeow:VerificationResult, never a truth axiom. A forgery is a fabrication that mimics a specific genuine work (gmeow:counterpartOf the original). An impersonation projects an gmeow:IdentityFacet whose subject differs from the deceiver — email spoofing is impersonation with a failed AuthenticationResult; phishing is an instance, never a taxonomy primitive.

Participant roles

gmeow:roleDeceiver · gmeow:roleDeceived · gmeow:roleBeneficiaryOfDeception · gmeow:roleDupe · gmeow:roleSpinDoctor

Open gmeow:ParticipantRole values on ordinary Participations. Self-deception is the configuration where deceiver = deceived; the dupe is the unwitting conduit; the spin doctor is specific to distortion events. No role implies guilt — roles are structure, intent is an attribution.

Propagation and the per-node boundary

gmeow:eventTypeDisinformation

A coordinated campaign aggregating constituent deception events along the prov:wasDerivedFrom / gmeow:propagatesFrom lineage spine. The misinformation↔disinformation boundary is per-node, never a global label: at the origin held ≠ projected (deception, roleDeceiver); at sincere intermediary nodes held ≈ projected and the claim is merely untrue (roleDupe).

gmeow:deceptionCue · gmeow:attestationTypeFactCheck

Evidence enters as observations: a cue is a behavioural, linguistic, or evidential signal attached non-functionally to the event — competing standpoint-indexed cue claims coexist. A fact-check is an attestation kind (the schema.org ClaimReview act) whose result is a VerificationResult, not a truth assertion.

Solver layer & deferred alignment

Everything that scores lives below the ontology (Principle 12): cue weighting (gmeow:credibilityScore), propagation-chain analysis (gmeow:propagationMutationDistance), argument evaluation (gmeow:argumentAcceptability, referencing AIF), implicature derivation, and maxim classification. The slice carries the structure those solvers read; it asserts no verdicts. Alignment is by reference — schema.org ClaimReview via the fact-check attestation kind, AIF for argument scores — with SSSOM rows deferred to the alignment window. DL-cleanliness is by construction: simple object properties only, no transitivity, chains, or inverses (Principle 3).

Bridge: aboutness (kernel)

gmeow:veridicalityLicensedFalsehood (fiction, satire, sarcasm) is the special case where the kernel's aboutness axis meets veridicality: a fictional carrier enacts its content (gmeow:hasAboutness gmeow:aboutnessEnacts) while asserting nothing — enactment without assertion is licensed, not deceptive. The bridge is documentation only, deliberately: no axiom couples hasAboutness to veridicality or standpoint modality, so enactment never entails assertion (and text about deception is never inferred to deceive).

Dependencies

Depends on kernel, events (the Event/eventType machinery), observations (cues), and attestation (fact-checks, verification results). Consumed by the claim layer's refutation modality and by the narrative extension's unreliable-narration and myth boundaries — both documented bridges, neither an axiom coupling.