There’s a lot of freaking out about Elon Musk buying Twitter going on right now and it’s pretty obvious as to why.
The political left has depended on Twitter management cooperating with the Democrat-led and leftist government requests to censor and cancel opposing voices and opponents, and to otherwise astroturf their opinions as being the prevailing ones (like lockdowns, or gender ideology, etc.) This, of course, is all under the guise of combatting that well-known bugaboo we’re all familiar with now, “disinformation” or “misinformation.”
Dr. Mark Changizi, on his substack, brings up a great point: “of course…. everyone believes that their opponents are ‘misinformed,’ that’s why I have the opinions that I do! I think you’re misinformed, and I’m right” and Dr. C. speaks of this to illustrate why censorship is so tempting for some people.
This got me to thinking about the term “misinformation” (and it’s cousin, “disinformation” - to which most of the things I’m about to say could also apply).
Interestingly (and I think we all know this) - prior to 2017 we never talked much about either term, as Google Trends indicates.
I think we all know why - after Hillary Clinton got herself surprise beaten by Donald Trump in the 2016 election, it didn’t take long before she and a variety of DC insiders started publicly speaking out about Russian “influence” into the 2016 campaign, and peddling all sorts of conspiracy theories about Trump, dossiers, and the like.
Trump then began denouncing these stories as “fake news” and (very effectively) using Twitter to rally his army of supporters and to rebut these claims, which were laundered through a variety of intelligence and social media sources, and even featured in a failed impeachment attempt.
Then, COVID happened, and the terms “misinformation” and “disinformation,” which, prior to 2017, were rarely used in public discourse (and appear to have been terms used originally to describe Soviet propaganda efforts), suddenly was on everyone’s lips. We even had a “ministry of truth” proposed by the Biden Administration (equal parts hilarious and scary) led by the comically clownish Nina Jankowicz:
… supposedly designed to “govern” the “disinformation” that is so dangerous in our media landscape.
Back to Mark Changizi’s quote. It really gets to the point when he says it like this:
“of course…. everyone believes that their opponents are ‘misinformed,’ that’s why I have the opinions that I do! I think you’re misinformed, and I’m right!”
Prior to Twitter, Facebook, and Big Tech censorship under the guise of “fighting misinformation” (and done in express coordination with the US government, as the evidence increasingly shows), prior to attempts to establish federal “ministries of truth,” people simply talked about others that they disagreed with as “being misinformed” - this was how normal people talked.
These old-terms-that-are-now-new-again, “misinformation” and “disinformation” - these aren’t descriptive terms. These a proscriptive terms masquerading as purely descriptive. When someone says you are a “purveyor of misinformation” they aren’t just describing your views as wrong, they are implying that you need to be silenced. That’s the point of these words.
Prior to this dystopian world we’ve found ourselves in post-COVID, when we saw other people who were misinformed, or trying to mislead (“misinfo / disinfo”) we, because we understood the value of a free society and free discourse, never considered censorship… because why would we? What did we do instead?
Turn off the TV
Use the mute or block button on Twitter or Facebook
Argue back (“the only cure for bad speech is more speech”)
Ignore
The world we live in now where censorship is just so obvious - where silencing dissent as a legitimate tool is just a given - it wasn’t always this way.
Just remember - there is no example in history where the pro-censorship side ever came out as a winner, or as “the good guy.”
You may not like this guy’s views - but he’s anti-censorship.
So am I.
Yup. I believe that we need, as a society, to relearn healthy discourse, and how to listen to others even if what they're saying conflicts with our own moral compass. Cheers, doc.
Captain Renault : What in heaven's name brought you to Casablanca?
Rick : My health. I came to Casablanca for the waters.
Captain Renault : The waters? What waters? We're in the desert.
Rick : I was misinformed.