Mis-Disinformation is to justify censorship...

All the talk about misinformation is to justify censorship
By Rhoda Wilson on February 7, 2024

In recent years, there has been an upsurge of concern about online misinformation and disinformation, with efforts to thwart it. In many cases, claims about false information serve to justify censorship. To better understand what’s going on, it’s useful to examine assumptions underlying the anti-misinformation enterprise.

The following is extracted from the article ‘Misinformation or Public Debate?’ written by Brian Martin and published by Propaganda in Focus.  You can read the full article HERE.

For the purposes here, there’s no need to delve into the differences between misinformation and disinformation, between being wrong sincerely versus intentionally. There’s enough research on self-deception to question whether intent can be reliably determined.

For decades, there have been fierce public controversies over health-related issues, including nuclear war, smoking, nuclear power, pesticides, fluoridation and genetically modified organisms.

In every one of these debates, partisans have claimed their opponents were wrong, misguided, biased or concealing the truth. However, the language of misinformation was not deployed. What today is called misinformation would, years ago, just be called being wrong and being wrong was seldom treated as a justification for censorship.

In 2019, the World Health Organisation listed “vaccine hesitancy” as one of the top ten threats to global health. Vaccine hesitancy refers to “the reluctance or refusal to vaccinate despite the availability of vaccines.”

Here, for consideration, are five assumptions that seem to underlie much of the concern about alleged covid vaccine misinformation and disinformation.

•     Misinformation warrants censorship.
•     Authorities decide what counts as misinformation.
•     Value judgements underlying the authorities’ position are not questioned.
•     False claims that serve powerful groups are ignored.
•     Censorship is an appropriate response to misinformation.

Regarding assumption #4, it’s worth noting that the intelligence agencies in many governments are well-versed in disinformation operations. Media coverage might mention foreign disinformation, but not disinformation by their own governments. Consider also the conclusion by eminent scientist John Ioannidis that most published research findings are false. How often are wrong research findings labelled misinformation?

Using the five assumptions above, censorship would be justified in a wide range of controversial issues, such as nuclear war, smoking, pesticides, and climate change. In practice, though, this has not occurred, at least not systematically. The movement against nuclear weapons, which was especially prominent in the 1980s, was not systematically censored in the West. Nor were peace campaigners condemned for promoting “nuclear weapons hesitancy.”

The historical experience concerning such issues suggests that much of the current alarm being drummed up about misinformation and disinformation is a way of justifying censorship and discrediting genuine disagreement about policies.