Why civil liberties advocates worry about crackdown on ‘misinformation’
Most speech, whether true or false, is protected under the U.S. legal system.
But questions about inaccurate information, spread maliciously or not, and its effects on many facets of our lives have led to efforts by social media platforms, fact-checkers and others to try to crack down.
And alot of those “fact-checkers” are themselves very BIASED.
Misinformation has become such a crisis, in fact, that the U.S. surgeon general, Vivek Murthy, recently issued a warning about false information surrounding COVID-19 vaccines. And President Biden Friday said it was “killing people,” a description Facebook took exception to.
And the information from these so-called “expects” have been too many times conflicted, contradictory, confusing and incomplete.
Some governments, however, have taken steps to go even further, and there are fears of using the concept of misinformation broadly to target dissent.
How do you then deal with different points of view. To both sides, their is fact while the other is misinformation? You can’t!
In recent years, Singapore, for example, implemented a law that requires platforms to remove certain posts that go against “public interest” such as security threats or the public’s perception of the government.
Similarly, Russia can legally fine those who show “blatant disrespect” online toward the state.
In February, India, the world’s largest democracy, implemented new rules to regulate online content, allowing the government to censor what it claims to be misinformation.
And don’t forget China, the CCP, and its national security law, where ALL wrong-think is punishable and even proven FACTs about tiananmen square!
It is PURE CENSORSHIP, not MISINFORMATIOM they want.
So along with those repressive laws, the US and Canada (Bill C-10 by the liberals) are on the same path as that of the CCP.
Government oversight of free-speech, when having an opinion they do not like is “misinformation” and they want you banned and in some cases face criminal prosecution.
But right now, these platforms themselves are censoring almost exclusively only one side.
Some middle ground MUST be made, which IMO is still a long ways away.
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