Misinformation: A Method of Trying to Shut Us Up By James Reed

Daniel Klein has an article, “Misinformation is a Word We Use to Shut You Up,” which is a relevant read in the aftermath of the Voice referendum. The Yes campaign constantly resorted to the tactic of making false claims, like the Uluru Statement from the Heart was only a single-page document. Another lie was that indigenous people currently didn’t have a say in the formulation of government policies, even though there are a disproportionate number of indigenous members of parliament relative to the indigenous population numbers.

The misinformation claim was made to the No side when these sorts of claims were criticised. If the elites have their way, and with internet censorship moving ahead, with the prime minister’s Misinformation Disinformation Bill, really a censorship Bill, next time round it may not be possible to publicly oppose anything that the elites put up. But, hopefully, Australians may be beginning to take back their country.

https://www.independent.org/publications/article.asp?id=14533

“The policing of “information” is the stuff of Naziism, Stalinism, Maoism, and similar anti-liberal regimes. To repress criticism of their dicta and diktats, anti-liberals label criticism “misinformation” or “disinformation.” Those labels are instruments to crush dissent. 

This paper offers an understanding of knowledge as involving three chief facets: information, interpretation, and judgment. Usually, what people argue fervently over is not information, but interpretation and judgment. 

What is being labeled and attacked as “misinformation” is not a matter of true or false information, but of true or false knowledge—meaning that disagreement more commonly arises over interpretations and judgments as to which interpretations to take stock in or believe. We make judgments, “good” and “bad,” “wise” and “foolish,” about interpretations, “true” and “false.” 

On that understanding, the paper explains that the projects and policies now afoot styled “anti-misinformation” and “anti-disinformation” are dishonest, as it should be obvious to all that those projects and policies would, if advanced honestly, be called something like “anti-falsehood” campaigns.

But to prosecute an “anti-falsehood” campaign would make obvious the true nature of what is afoot—an Orwellian boot to stomp on Wrongthink. To support governmental policing of “information” is to confess one’s anti-liberalism and illiberality. The essay offers a spiral diagram to show the three chief facets of knowledge (information, interpretation, and judgment) plus a fourth facet, fact, which also deserves distinct conceptualization, even though the spiral reminds us: Facts are theory-laden.”