Today’s censors wield cudgels with the word ‘information.’ Content they don’t like they call ‘misinformation’ or ‘disinformation.’ The justification is fake. The protection is faux protection. Pretending to protect people from bad information by means of censorship may be called infaux thuggery.
The cudgels are hidden, of course, but it is not hard to see through the pretence and discern the underlying message: knuckle under or we will hurt you.
The UK’s Online Safety Act exemplifies infaux thuggery, as does Brazil’s recent action against X (formerly Twitter). The Australian government is dominated by another gang of infaux thugs. The UK, sadly, not only practices infaux thuggery at home, it tutors the world in infaux thuggery.
The same goes for where I live, the United States. Kamala Harris threatens: ‘If you act as a megaphone for misinformation… we are going to hold you accountable.’ Hillary Clinton calls for criminalization of speech not to her liking. Harris’ running mate Tim Walz threatens: ‘There’s no guarantee to free speech on misinformation and hate speech.’
Thankfully, that’s not true, at least in the US. As Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. responded, the US Constitution ‘is exactly what prevents the government from stifling dissent by labeling something “hate speech” or “misinformation.”’ Alarmingly, former Secretary of State John Kerry recently lamented that the First Amendment ‘stands as a major block to…hammer it [“disinformation”] out of existence,’ and implied that that ‘is part of what this race, this election is all about.’
Of course, malicious actors, including enemy states, may spread lies to sow discord – especially online. So too can those who are simply ill-informed. Yet in the absence of censorship, big lies will be torn to shreds. In this battle, the infaux thugs are on the wrong side.
The infaux thugs use ‘information’ to confuse matters. The content they suppress is more aptly termed narratives, interpretations, opinions or judgments. Those terms are more capacious, befitting frank and open debate and controversy.
In their hostility to open debate, the infaux thugs are mounting an attack on modern civilisation. They evoke our crude instincts from pre-modern life, instincts for a small, simple society, in which the leader’s narrative must be believed by all and enforced upon the members of the band. If you don’t share the leader’s narrative, you are a miscreant. You are to be corrected, expelled or destroyed. At the very least, you are to shut up.
Hellbound and Down 