The War of the Words
What truth is, whether it exists, where it can be found - these are questions that humanity has pondered for hundreds (maybe thousands) of years. But recently, the US government suggested such pesky questions could be answered through the creation of the Disinformation Governance Board. This state entity would have been entrusted with “identifying disinformation that threatens the Homeland” and “sharing factual information to support its information to potentially impacted people and organizations”.
Comparisons to an Orwellian Ministry of Truth quickly surfaced, with so many cries of outrage that administration officials, no doubt realizing the poor optics of the move, decided to “pause” the board. Unsurprisingly, government and state supportive media suggested that it was incorrect information itself that forced the suspension of such a wonderful initiative.
Any ideology that insists that one set of facts is truth, and another is mis or disinformation, and that any one expert or group of experts should be given the task of determining it, is problematic when we look at what, how and where information is conveyed. Especially with sensitive topics or areas where professional egos or political agendas are involved, limiting access to information or debate is going to obscure truth, not reveal it.
All information - whether it’s an essay like this one, a research study published in a peer-reviewed journal, or a front page article in the news - is always somewhere on the spectrum between propaganda and fact. Humans are not neurologically wired to be neutral - our biases may be known or unknown to us, but either way they influence both how we see the world and how we communicate with it, making it impossible for us to say the information we offer others is objectively true. And, as I pointed out in my previous essay on freedom of speech, there is seldom scientific consensus on anything, so declaring most things - how viruses are transmitted, whether certain medical treatments are efficacious or not, even whether the atom exists - as true or false will completely depend on which expert is speaking. Who is considered qualified to speak on any given topic will depend on which person you ask - as legal counsel using expert witnesses well know. Our authority bias means we tend to trust people with credentials in positions of power, or particular systems of government, so we assign expert status to such people or systems irrespective of the actual truth or validity of the information and perspectives they provide. Any government body creating a Ministry of Truth type department or board seeks to take advantage of that bias and cement it further by insisting all other viewpoints are false.
More important than whether a certain piece of information is true or not is the motivation of those attempting to discredit it. I have no issue with attempts to clarify or correct information that are transparent and driven by a genuine interest in truth. But with human nature as subjective as it is, and with bias free information so difficult to come by in either profit-driven or state-supported media, it is virtually impossible to declare anything true, and potentially dangerous to democracy to apply punitive or censorial measures to people who provide information contrary to government or popular media narratives.
It is worth considering what is behind the recent outcry over online dis and misinformation. Consider the following editorial statement from the venerable New York Times: “The nation as a whole continues to face the danger of incomplete, misunderstood news…over a medium which has yet to prove that it is competent to perform the news job.” Compare it with this one, also from the New York Times, which says “there seems to be something specific about scrolling through Facebook or Twitter” that makes them [seniors] more vulnerable to misinformation”. A brief search for misinformation online immediately yields 18,600,000 so misinformation is clearly a problem. Or is it?
Fake news warnings say essentially the same thing - that certain mediums (or people) are unreliable sources of information, and that the public can’t be trusted to know the difference between fact and fiction. That there may be more than kind concern and a desire for accuracy behind such warnings becomes glaringly evident when we examine them with the benefit of time. The first NYT excerpt I printed is actually from a 1938 editorial called “Terror by Radio” and it spawned the pervasive myth of the War of the Worlds. This myth, which I believed myself until accidentally discovering it in an unrelated research project, stated that, upon hearing a radio broadcast of H.G. Wells’ fictional tale of alien invasion, over a million people responded with panic and hysteria, spilling into the streets in fear. Yet, as an article on Slate.com pointed out, the story of the broadcast - which few people listened to, and far fewer even felt alarmed by, never mind panicked - was sensationalized by the newspapers in an attempt to discredit radio, which had been steadily stealing ad revenue from the traditional news sources. The accuracy of the story didn’t matter, what mattered was getting out the message that radio couldn’t be trusted, and so the story was repeated over and over again. It resurfaced as recently as 2013 when ironically the U.S. National Public Radio aired its own version of the story originally meant to ensure its medium’s own demise.
This perception of the public as a bunch of gullible dolts, willing to believe anything and then harm themselves or others, is a gross oversimplification of human nature. It is also a paternalistic view that disrespects others, and assumes that individuals can not be trusted to have personal responsibility for the information they consume and what they do with it. Don’t get my wrong, I fully understand the reflexive desire to have people only read information that I believe. I have certainly been guilty, when I read articles that contain inaccuracies on topics I hold dear or opinions that conflict with mine, of reacting with thoughts like “people shouldn’t read this, they will be misled, they will take the wrong action”. But that is my own cognitive bias, and why do I think other people know less than me? Why do I think their conclusions are inaccurate, and that only I know the truth? When we realize that we are making such flawed assumptions, and when we trust that others are capable of drawing their own conclusions (and making their own mistakes), we can give up our need to control information.
Is information, even when it is false, responsible for turning people away from truth? I follow or have followed people who have been banned, censored, or labelled as false, but my experience has been that I find sources that resonate with my perspective after I have already formed an opinion. I am swayed by everything I hear, no matter what the source, but I tend to be closed to and react against what I already disagree with, and open to what I feel to be true. The only time I truly listen to an opposing view is when it is presented to me fairly, honestly and authentically - not when someone is trying to force their perspective on me, or tell me I’m misinformed, ignorant, or selfish for disagreeing.
There’s no question that a bombardment of information makes discernment difficult. or that conflicting information can make decision making challenging for all of us. Yet if the “experts” would stop fearing opposing views and resist the temptation to clamp down on and ridicule those who offer information that conflicts with their own, if they could be transparent about the data on which they base their conclusions and honest about their own biases, if they could allow “the public” (whoever that is) to make their own choices, and focus simply on presenting the best quality of information rather than the best spin, there would be no need for government management of information, and the decisions in our civil societies could be made calmly and clearly by truly informed human beings.
Of course, there is the possibility that news can induce hysteria and panic - just how widespread or long lasting that can be depends on how much it is repeated. For instance, if there were a concerted effort by all official government and news sources to convince us of one uniform message - like that aliens were indeed landing - we would hear it loud and clear (unlike the 1938 radio listeners who had other shows to capture their attention). And if anyone who disagreed with that message, or offered an opposing viewpoint, was harshly censured, censored, or fired from their position, we would be unable to find anything other than that uniform message. And if, unlike the War of the Worlds listeners, our direct experience couldn’t contradict that message - if we were told that the aliens were invisible - floating through the air like say, virus particles, ready to parasitize our bodies and then murder our loved ones should we venture out - and that the only way we could protect ourselves would be to stay home, we likely would stay hidden for months. But I’m sure that would never happen!
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