‘Mis-‘, ‘Dis-‘, & ‘Mal-‘ Information
Occasionally I make the horrific mistake of engaging on social media. It has become the proxy for the civil war that would likely be happening if not for our digital arenas——places for venting our innumerable grievances one enraged group of ideologues against another. One of the platforms that I frequent the most is Quora, where people ask questions and receive answers from random strangers on the internet; people like myself lurking around online with nothing better to do and no qualifications to validate their responses. Certainly the vitriol is ever-present here as it is on all of the other platforms, it’s just masked in the form of questions or perhaps…a scathing answer to one.
Over time I’ve replied to what seems like the same questions again and again, asked in different manners and even occasionally with different words; but generally they seem to reflect the same overall sentiments——questions that should have been answered definitively throughout our nation’s history (though apparently unbeknownst to most of our nation’s people). What’s interesting is that these questions are so fundamental to the establishment of our society, that had I not become so accustomed to their frequent regurgitation, I would hardly be able to stomach entertaining them with any answer at all. One such question is whether it’s necessary to limit the freedom of speech or the press in order to ensure our “protection from ‘misinformation’.” As appalled as I am at such a question, it compels me to wonder just what the hell these kids are learning in school these days. I’m not sure if perhaps I’m just becoming the grumpy old codger shaking his head in disapproval at the younger generation, but how can someone not be think through the consequences of such an idea?
In 1643 the English Parliament enacted the “Ordinance for Correcting and Regulating the Abuses of the Press”, it’s role was to quell the distribution of “scandalous” or “unlicensed” printed materials. It required that any sale or production of publications be licensed under the authority of Parliament, and they made The London Stationer’s Company (which held a monopoly over the publishing industry) agents for this ruling body. They were given authority to search out and seize unlicensed publications, destroy the material and the printing machines that produced it, as well as arrest those who dared to print what was unapproved. Ultimately this led to the bureaucratic control of information and established a censorship regime for the dissemination of knowledge to the public. This ordinance was adopted to replace the prior “Star Chamber” (a body of the reigning monarch’s advisors) which had abused it’s position by engaging in the silencing of political opposition; and not so ironically this replacement took up the same mantle in very short order. While politicians have always claimed that this type of control will only be used to protect the masses from the distribution of lies, of course in action those in power only use such authority to simply maintain and grow their own power. If one might venture to criticize a policy that the bureaucracy seeks to implement, they’re simply restrained from voicing their disapproval, and ‘the problem’ disappears.
On June 8, 1789 James Madison proposed his provisions for the protection of speech and of the press to the House of Representatives, which was later tweaked and revised before being incorporated into our First Amendment:
“The people shall not be deprived or abridged of their right to speak, to write, or to publish their sentiments; and the freedom of the press, as one of the great bulwarks of liberty, shall be inviolable.”
~ James Madison | Annals of Congress 434 (1789)
What first draws my attention——other than the use of outdated, and unfashionable words——is that the lines seem a bit blurred between the public and the press. One might read Madison’s version of our amendment and determine that the press is simply public discourse in any form. Perhaps the intent was to prevent the institution of licensing ordinances such as those imposed in England——if “the press” is defined as anyone’s speech, then it can hardly be subjected to licensing. In the past I have noted the interesting position of the protection for the press in the final version of our cardinal amendment placed slyly between our tools for public communication: speech, assembly, and the airing of our grievances. This suggests that however a “free press” is defined, it is not exclusive of broad public conversation. The dissemination, expression, or publication of information by anyone essentially places them among the ranks of this “press”.
Today, it seems more difficult to hold this view as we’ve seen our press become the imposing corporate media machines they are——driven by profits from the clicks they can entice using carefully crafted yet not so honestly spun headlines (which coincidentally seem to always align with the interests of their donors). We find our “professional journalists” bloviating their personal viewpoints and we deem those opinions somehow more “professional” than the opinions of random strangers, even though these same journalists are in fact random strangers to us. Though their credentials do qualify them to ‘journal’, I guess, they don’t qualify them to have any real expertise in whatever they happen to opine about; particularly when they clearly have ideological motivations pushing their agenda-driven fingertips across their sponsored keyboards. Though it seems our measure of credibility these days is more a count of likes or follows on social media, or the ability to “destroy” someone on a public forum than it is related to the merits of their arguments. None-the-less ‘citizen journalism’ would be as valid a definition of a “free press” as anything as I see it in Madison’s text.
However you choose to define “the free press”, what is certain is that it is not in any way obligatory to simply subjugate ourselves to whatever random opinions we encounter from it…except that we do. We seek out and discover the news which aligns itself with our own biases, and then adopt every word they utter as though they’ve been objectively developed during our own personal quest for the truth. It’s much easier to be affirmed in our existing beliefs than it is to be challenged by something new of course, and if we can memorize whatever reasonably clever talking points we glean from our “free press”, then we don’t have to climb that mountain of…seeking the truth for ourselves. If we can live out our lives inside an echo chamber we are certain life would be better for us, as a result we cry out for coercive policies to protect us by silencing the opposition. So as I force back what is clearly a gag reflex reading questions like: “How do we stop the spread of mis-, dis-, and mal-information?” I try to muster some amount of cordiality while twitching and squinting as I type my reply. “What the hell is the matter with you?” is what I want to say, but I’m not sure that will really be helpful.
As a “free people” we make our own choices, and as a result of this we are solely responsible for the choices we make. One such choice is what we choose to believe, or what we might determine to be truth or falsehood. This responsibility shouldn’t be outsourced to the press, nor to the politicians who may choose to regulate it at our short-sighted behest. This means that being exposed to lies or being confronted by “false information” is likely to happen eternally, but we must choose to investigate for ourselves what is true and what is not. Without responsibly bearing this responsibility, we are simply handing off control over our thinking to others with their own motivations, and their own priorities.
What we say, what we hear, what we read, what we learn, what we discover, what we know, and what we believe are all dependent upon the information available to us. When that information is governed, our very mind is governed along with it——whoever controls our information, is in control of us. The censorship and regulation of information results in the enslavement of a people. The censor’s goal is not protecting us from lies, it’s protecting themselves from the exposure of their own fabrications, or the illumination of their monumental failures.
As I’ve mentioned in the course of this discussion, we should not distinguish ourselves or our own speech entirely from the press. When we promote the idea that “harmful” speech should be regulated, we’re leaving the definition of terms like “harmful” up to those who control it. What is harmful to them is dissent, a challenge to their power and authority, or whatever might benefit their opposition or jeopardize their careers. And while we may think it’s a great idea that we won’t be confronted by things we don’t like to listen to, it also has a much broader scope: it isn’t just what others might say, it’s also what all of us are able to hear; it isn’t simply what certain people may write, it’s what all of us can read; it isn’t just what we say, hear, read and write, it’s also what we can learn from textbooks, find in a bookstore, a magazine, a social post, see on TV or YouTube, discuss with our friends or family while Siri or Alexa quietly monitor our words. Such power isn’t simply going to be used against those who disagree with us it will be used against us as well, when those who disagree with us come to be the ones wielding this power. It will require that we carefully craft our words in our heads before speaking, to avoid violating the policies put in place to filter what’s spoken, shaping our minds into conformity one brain cell at a time——minds that will be ever and ever more diminished by an ever diminishing access to the truth. Information true or false isn’t harmful, what’s harmful is believing lies. If we subcontract our definition of truth to the ruling classes, we’re subcontracting our own opinions. We’re giving power over our minds to that same ruling class who happens to rise to that power by garnering a favorable public opinion. It’s a slippery thing this call to govern information, and not considering carefully the effects of the policies we call for is precisely the blasé that has resulted in our leaders slyly enacting ever more staggering intrusions on our lives one after another.
“How then should the public conversation be governed?” The answer is simple: free people govern themselves.
Often the response I get from these proponents of silencing a free people, is that “people are too dumb to seek the truth for themselves.” I suppose that could be true, but have we learned from experience that politicians are so much smarter? And even if they are, which I seriously doubt, how do we ensure they’ll rule over us with benevolence and not impose on us some form of tyranny? Hasn’t history shown us definitively that power corrupts? Yet we should expand our trust on those in power by giving them even more power over our speech? Is there more collective wisdom in the few hundred ‘elite’ than the hundreds of millions of people in the public? A public I might add, which doesn’t have the same capacity of imposing their opinions on us by force, or throwing us in jail or worse if we just so happen to disagree with them. Shouldn’t we be asking these kinds of questions too?
It is precisely the broad public conversation that allows us to learn, grow, and find the truth together, and that’s precisely the reason our rulers want to control it
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