Last Monday, I noticed a tiny article in the Dutch Financial Times: the Dutch Minister of the Interior wants that social media companies in the Netherlands also use a label for highlighting fake news. Before, I had not (yet) realised that this label is actually evidence of the migration from the belief system the Truth towards (government-mandated) Data-Info.
These news labels are already common in USA following the 2020 US presidential election and Trump’s habit of spreading falsehoods. In 2019, state-backed media advertising and political advertising were already banned from Twitter. In 2020, Twitter added “new labels for government and state-affiliated media accounts”.
The impact of the above is massive: a private company is deciding on the validity of public and political messages. It’s even worse in my country: the Dutch government is asking private companies to do the public work of governments. Also see my recent blogs on the redundancy of politics: part 1 and part 2.
The Dutch request is almost Machiavellian: “sneaky, cunning, and lacking a moral code”. Instead of the Dutch government drafting a law on fake news, private companies are being asked to decide whether their user contributions are true or fake. Once private companies are performing this public task, governments will steer such companies towards their favoured direction.
Essentially, governments will claim that there is a constitutional right of freedom of speech – until you upload that speech to a social media company. Facebook’s blocking of my / this blog might also be an example of this phenomenon. LinkedIn still allows my blogs.
However, things can be much worse. Recently, a lone man in Singapore was arrested and charged with illegal public assembly by just holding up a carton board with a smiley face sign (BBC). That man is a civil rights activist and was drawing attention to the lack of freedom of speech in Singapore. His arrest proved the validity of his point.
Fake news is an annoyance to many governments. True news is an annoyance to governments and people (eg, Trump) spreading such fake news. Hence, the internet censorship in China and in Russia. The Covid-19 pandemic is handing both types of governments an excellent excuse for getting rid of such annoyances. For both, government-mandated Data-Info is their solution.
“You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you mad.” A quote by Aldous Huxley (1894-1963), “an English writer and philosopher”.
They Don’t Care About Us (1996) by Michael Jackson (1958-2009)
artist, lyrics, video, Wiki-1, Wiki-2
Note: all markings (bold, italic, underlining) by LO unless stated otherwise.
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