You Have a Right to Access Misinformation
No one among us is entitled to be the arbiter of truth. Any institution pretending they are harms all of us.
“Our hope is that all major tech platforms — and all major news sources, for that matter — be responsible and be vigilant to ensure the American people have access to accurate information on something as significant as COVID-19. That certainly includes Spotify. So this disclaimer is a positive step, but we want every platform to continue doing more to call out mis- and disinformation, while also uplifting accurate information. […] It’s a positive step, but there’s more that can be done.”
Jen Psaki delicately skated around saying it point-blank when asked what the White House thought about Spotify’s recent response to artists requesting their music be pulled from the platform. “Cancel,” Jen. That’s the word you’re looking for. That’s what you, the president, Neil Young, and every other artist following his lead would like to see done to Joe Rogan. “De-platform,” or “censor” would also be acceptable choices if you actually felt like being honest.
Psaki rarely, if ever, feels like being honest, though. Case-in-point: the laughable part of her comment where she says we should “have access to accurate information.” Perhaps she hadn’t heard about the $3 billion the Biden administration spent to “increase vaccine confidence.” I’m pretty certain everybody knows the government’s stance on COVID. Six feet, ten five-day quarantine, three vaccines, two masks, and a partridge in a pear tree. Not a single person hasn’t heard it by now, preached to us unceasingly by our own congress members over TV and radio ads that we paid for with out tax dollars. Nobody, and I repeat nobody, is lacking access to their COVID narrative. Her problem is that we have access to any alternative.
When you think about it, that’s really how “misinformation” is being defined right now, isn’t it? Anything contradictory to the current official narrative of government, or of “The Science™,” which is sponsored by federal grants that will be withheld if your findings don’t fit the narrative. Despite the fact that the science always seems to be changing, no one is getting their Facebook and Twitter accounts reinstated once the public health officials come out and admit that the vaccines don’t stop transmission and cloth masks are ineffective. In the eyes of those people and institutions who believe the government to be the ultimate arbiter of truth, that doesn’t make it any less of misinformation. To them, these facts only became the truth once the admission left Rochelle Walensky’s mouth.
If this is the standard that we have, then in the 1940’s it was misinformation to suggest that somehow the DDT we were spraying all over our children and public streets might cause people harm. It was misinformation to claim this all the way up until DDT was banned in 1972. All the way up until 2011, it was misinformation to suggest that perhaps it wasn’t actually healthy to be consuming 6 to 11 servings of grain each day like the USDA’s food pyramid suggested.
Many argue that stopping censorship is only a matter of protecting free speech when it’s the government attempting to silence dissent. Facebook, Twitter, Spotify, et al., are all private companies, and free to police speech on their platforms how they choose. In theory, this is absolutely true. In a world where businesses weren’t bullied into doing what the government knows it isn’t allowed to do itself, I would not have a single complaint about what big tech companies refused to play host to. We, however, live in a nation where government has shown that when it reaches its constitutional limits on policing our behavior, it will just force private industry to do it, and if you refuse, you’ll be dragged before Congressional hearings and lambasted on corporate media. Much like the fates of many unvaccinated workers were sealed when employers instituted vaccine mandates before the Supreme Court's OSHA ruling was decided, those who lost their social media accounts for spreading “misinformation” that is now an official CDC position will never get their accounts back. The damage can’t, or at least won’t, be undone.
Public officials and their allies in big tech often argue that these platforms have a “social responsibility” to combat misinformation. I would argue they have a social responsibility to let people speak freely, instead of only allowing speech that reinforces the government narrative. Just yesterday, the “Convoy to D.C. 2022” Facebook group was taken down. The group was populated with truckers looking to replicate the peaceful protests staged in Ottawa, Canada this week. Facebook stated that the group had “repeatedly violat[ed] our policies around QAnon.” Really? The group did? Or did you cherry-pick a couple posts and take down the entire group instead of just the offending posters? After seeing what’s taken place north of the border, Facebook’s beltway handlers certainly don’t want a visit from America’s supply chain heroes. I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that they told Facebook to put the kibosh on the convoy, if Zuckerberg didn’t want to make another of his always-entertaining trips to the Capitol.
Our government should not be acting like the Chinese Communist Party. Dissent is healthy, and when the official positions are correct, enforcement isn’t necessary. Anyone who’s in the wrong about an issue doesn’t ever have the opportunity to be beaten in a fair debate if they’re simply prevented from ever sharing their position. Instead, they’ll just dig in their heels and be forced to communicate only with people of the same mindset. The Neil Youngs and Joni Mitchells of the world, who want all detractors silenced, suffer either from a lack of confidence that their position is strong enough to stand in the face of disagreement, or from an extreme arrogance that their own ability to reason is so astronomically greater than ours that they need to save us from ourselves. Either explanation is, plainly, pretty sad.
Objective truth is out there — not just on COVID vaccines, but on the 2020 election, climate change, and every other issue you post about that Facebook puts an annoying disclaimer under. We don’t know which official narrative may be next to crumble, but people have the right to comb through as much information they can find (without the disclaimers) in order to decide where they stand. Yes, some of it will undoubtedly be misinformation (or what reasonable people just call “wrong”). Even in those rare instances where almost everyone can agree on what the truth is and all the facts are staring you in the face, some people will still end up in Dealey Plaza waiting for JFK Jr.’s triumphal return, and it’s a testament to how powerless censorship truly is. But if one thing is certain, it’s that so long as every major institution’s goal is to browbeat and demoralize us into submission, the only way to find out when they’re wrong is to find out the hard way.
Friends, please consider sharing this article on social media or emailing it to a handful of friends and encouraging them to subscribe. Given what we’re up against, it’s more critical now than ever that we’re able to get our message out there. Please consider following me on Facebook and Twitter as well. Thank you for all of your support, and never let your guard down in the fight for liberty.
-Brady