To spin something is to communicate it in a way that changes the way people are likely to perceive it. As such, spin is intentionally misleading and can, in fact, give the opposite impression to what would naturally occur.

Article spinning - or content spinning - is the practice of re-writing someone else's piece of content to create what seems to be an original piece. Article spinning replaces words, phrases, and sentences with alternate versions to make the content look original to search engine crawlers and website visitors.