The War on Misinformation isn't driven by rationality or altruism, but by a visceral reaction against the wrong sort of opinions, and the people who hold them
The problem with deliberately, publicly, interfering with the public discussion in the way that "the right not to be misinformed" proposes is that it undermines the legitimacy of democratic decisions.
Not just in the abstract but it interferes with one of the principal benefits of a democratic vote. Voting makes everyone responsible for the consequences. When a government makes bad decisions there is the feeling that we are all in some way culpable - even those who vote for the opposition - because we all took part in this open decision making process.
That is lost when we have someone else to blame - those who distorted the dicussion - the ones who stopped us making a good decision. It absolves us of responsibility and makes politics more unstable.
The idea of misinformation has nothing to do with testing facts or discerning truth. That might lead to unexpected results and would not be allowed. It is simply about imposing the worldview of centre left upper middle class strivers. No dissent is allowed and even if your statements are factually true, they are still labeled misinformation if they lead to the “wrong” conclusions.
I think ideology has far more explanatory power than aesthetics. People on the far left don't communicate in a fact-oriented, rational way. They communicate more like the apes without Powerpoint you talk about. Think of BLM. Think of trans advocates. Think of climate change fanatics These people are not making claims based on cold facts and reason. Quite the opposite: they make unscientific claims and use moral extortion rather than reason. But their ideas have massive influence on the PMC even if many in PMC would admit, after a few drinks and in perfect confidence, that they (the far left) sometimes go too far.
Why is this? The PMC is largely of the left. Being of the left is their primary source of their moral prestige in their own eyes and in the eyes of their peers. It would be much worse for their self image and in-group image for them to agree with even the moderate right than with the far left, regardless of the merits, aesthetic or otherwise, of the particular argument.
What's most concerning here is that the comment comes from a sitting Supreme Court Judge, which body will ultimately be the arbiter of the limits of freedom of expression.
I agree that the collapse of the mainstream media, and trust in it, alongside the rise of social media creates a potential democratic risk. I am not entirely sure, however, that it is really any different to having one of two well known Irish Media billionaires, the corporate entities that replaced them, the RTE editorial board or a bunch of decidedly middle class conservatives / woke disciples (the IT) deciding what the public hear.
I think the solution to the risk isn't less free speech, it is more. Maybe if the media actually acknowledged their failings on issues like Covid, Brexit, Immigration, Trump, Russia / Ukraine, Russian interference in the US elections, Trans excess and cancel culture and courted more diverse opinions on these issues we could be in a better place.
Zuckerberg of Facebook admitted that his Company manipulated social media to favour the abortion case in the Referendum.
George Soros funded many of the pro-abortion NGO's.
This was blatant vote rigging in the case of the abortion referendumand also applies to the Gay Marriage, and lobbying of NGO's for the Gender Recognition Act. funded by the Regime.
Democracy no longer exists in Ireland, when there are Regime funded professional PR groups actively manipulating consent and managing perception to rig Elections and Referendums.
Lets make a start and update the Electoral Register , and excise the thousands from the graveyards of Ireland who continue to have a vote, available to unscrupolous scoundrels who 'stuff' the ballot boxes.
Ballot boxes ought to be of clear perspex to detect 'stuffing', as is common in practice in other Jurisdictions.
There can be no integrity of an Election ,unless there is a clear chain of custody and security of Ballot boxes from warehouse to Voting Centres to Counting Centres.
Only a random detail of Military security can be relied on. The politicised and compromised Gardai, as Regime lapdogs have lost the trust of the People and can no longer be trusted to continue to carry out this task
The Gript face emerges precisely because the right to not be confronted with opinions one finds repulsive is difficult to apply to, say, government ministers, who to be honest probably have much thicker skin than most people involved in the consensus manufacturing and laundering process, and especially when the target of enforcement of this right is an accredited media organization. If such approaches were used against the heads of NGOs or their spokespeople, I think the reaction would be less annoyance and contempt and more a default to the posture of aggrieved harm, and a more explicit call for suppression of uncomfortable questions.
My theory as to why Twitter being run by Elon Musk was evidently so concerning to a lot of people in this grouping you mention is not because it particular matters for the question of the Health of Our Democracy Which Must Be Shielded From Misinformation, but because mostly people in the professional managerial class do not want to be confronted with the existence of non-PMC people who are not properly contextualized first. The fact that the website is being run into the ground, taken over by crypto scammers, porn bots, and with parts of its technical infrastructure in serious decline, is more than anything else a sign of just how fragile most of digital life is, and how quickly parts of it can fail.
"a right to not be misinformed" Wow....even George Orwell could not have come up with that piece of Doublethink." https://grahamcunningham.substack.com/
The problem with deliberately, publicly, interfering with the public discussion in the way that "the right not to be misinformed" proposes is that it undermines the legitimacy of democratic decisions.
Not just in the abstract but it interferes with one of the principal benefits of a democratic vote. Voting makes everyone responsible for the consequences. When a government makes bad decisions there is the feeling that we are all in some way culpable - even those who vote for the opposition - because we all took part in this open decision making process.
That is lost when we have someone else to blame - those who distorted the dicussion - the ones who stopped us making a good decision. It absolves us of responsibility and makes politics more unstable.
Does the idea that you can change sex through drugs and surgeries count as misinformation?
The idea of misinformation has nothing to do with testing facts or discerning truth. That might lead to unexpected results and would not be allowed. It is simply about imposing the worldview of centre left upper middle class strivers. No dissent is allowed and even if your statements are factually true, they are still labeled misinformation if they lead to the “wrong” conclusions.
I think ideology has far more explanatory power than aesthetics. People on the far left don't communicate in a fact-oriented, rational way. They communicate more like the apes without Powerpoint you talk about. Think of BLM. Think of trans advocates. Think of climate change fanatics These people are not making claims based on cold facts and reason. Quite the opposite: they make unscientific claims and use moral extortion rather than reason. But their ideas have massive influence on the PMC even if many in PMC would admit, after a few drinks and in perfect confidence, that they (the far left) sometimes go too far.
Why is this? The PMC is largely of the left. Being of the left is their primary source of their moral prestige in their own eyes and in the eyes of their peers. It would be much worse for their self image and in-group image for them to agree with even the moderate right than with the far left, regardless of the merits, aesthetic or otherwise, of the particular argument.
What's most concerning here is that the comment comes from a sitting Supreme Court Judge, which body will ultimately be the arbiter of the limits of freedom of expression.
I agree that the collapse of the mainstream media, and trust in it, alongside the rise of social media creates a potential democratic risk. I am not entirely sure, however, that it is really any different to having one of two well known Irish Media billionaires, the corporate entities that replaced them, the RTE editorial board or a bunch of decidedly middle class conservatives / woke disciples (the IT) deciding what the public hear.
I think the solution to the risk isn't less free speech, it is more. Maybe if the media actually acknowledged their failings on issues like Covid, Brexit, Immigration, Trump, Russia / Ukraine, Russian interference in the US elections, Trans excess and cancel culture and courted more diverse opinions on these issues we could be in a better place.
This was blatant vote of the Abortion referendum.
Zuckerberg of Facebook admitted that his Company manipulated social media to favour the abortion case in the Referendum.
George Soros funded many of the pro-abortion NGO's.
This was blatant vote rigging in the case of the abortion referendumand also applies to the Gay Marriage, and lobbying of NGO's for the Gender Recognition Act. funded by the Regime.
Democracy no longer exists in Ireland, when there are Regime funded professional PR groups actively manipulating consent and managing perception to rig Elections and Referendums.
Lets make a start and update the Electoral Register , and excise the thousands from the graveyards of Ireland who continue to have a vote, available to unscrupolous scoundrels who 'stuff' the ballot boxes.
Ballot boxes ought to be of clear perspex to detect 'stuffing', as is common in practice in other Jurisdictions.
There can be no integrity of an Election ,unless there is a clear chain of custody and security of Ballot boxes from warehouse to Voting Centres to Counting Centres.
Only a random detail of Military security can be relied on. The politicised and compromised Gardai, as Regime lapdogs have lost the trust of the People and can no longer be trusted to continue to carry out this task
The Gript face emerges precisely because the right to not be confronted with opinions one finds repulsive is difficult to apply to, say, government ministers, who to be honest probably have much thicker skin than most people involved in the consensus manufacturing and laundering process, and especially when the target of enforcement of this right is an accredited media organization. If such approaches were used against the heads of NGOs or their spokespeople, I think the reaction would be less annoyance and contempt and more a default to the posture of aggrieved harm, and a more explicit call for suppression of uncomfortable questions.
My theory as to why Twitter being run by Elon Musk was evidently so concerning to a lot of people in this grouping you mention is not because it particular matters for the question of the Health of Our Democracy Which Must Be Shielded From Misinformation, but because mostly people in the professional managerial class do not want to be confronted with the existence of non-PMC people who are not properly contextualized first. The fact that the website is being run into the ground, taken over by crypto scammers, porn bots, and with parts of its technical infrastructure in serious decline, is more than anything else a sign of just how fragile most of digital life is, and how quickly parts of it can fail.
"a right to not be misinformed" Wow....even George Orwell could not have come up with that piece of Doublethink." https://grahamcunningham.substack.com/