Misinformed

Freedom of speech is at a precarious zenith. A zenith because it is possible for anybody to communicate instantly, privately and simultaneously with almost anybody on earth, via text, speech or video. Precarious because the means of this communication is centrally controlled in a way books and newspapers never were. The potential for censorship and control of ideas has never been greater, and the temptation for governments to abuse these tools is as real and dangerous as ever.

It leaves us with a fundamentally important question as a party: what is our response to growing censorship of the internet in the name of cracking down on disinformation and harmful content?

I believe that this question goes to the very heart of what it means to be Liberal. Free speech is a cornerstone of liberalism: if we don’t defend it, nobody will.

The challenges are obvious for all to see: the potential for foreign interference in elections, the rapid spread of inflammatory content giving rise to violence, mass dissemination of false or misleading information.

The problem is this: who decides what is harmful? Who decides what information is false or misleading? Such decisions are too important to put in the hands of a select few, however well meaning.  How many important ideas in our history have been denounced as inflammatory and harmful by respectable society? How many civil rights movements have involved incitement to struggle and ultimately violence? How many times has the truth been called false, or a lie called true by the masses or by the establishment?

There can be no central arbiter for what is true or harmful, and no government or corporation should attempt to play this role. To concentrate such power in the hands of the few is both foolish and dangerous.

Our policy should be clear: the government should play no role whatsoever in the censorship of digital media, excepting the long-established laws regarding unacceptable content (e.g. explicit incitement to violence). That’s not to say we should do nothing to address the many new challenges that digital media has given rise to, rather that censorship ought to be a last resort deployed in only the most extreme cases.

Instead, we should think of our information network as an organism, one which is both susceptible to the spread of lies but also possessed of an adaptable immune system able to distinguish between what is harmful and what is trustworthy. Take for example the rise of deepfakes, a new ‘pathogen’ in the information network. For a while, it may cause some trouble and confuse and mislead people, but the immune system will be quick to kick in. The platforms will introduce systems for detecting and labeling deepfakes, before long people will become wise to deepfakes just as we become wise to all scams and charlatans. It is both futile and dangerous to try and legislate away the problem as has occurred in California and elsewhere: far better to boost the ‘immune response’ that is already at work.

It is also important to recognise that speech without trust is powerless. The need to establish trust in an open market of information is the force by which truth ultimately prevails in journalism. Where trust in institutions is decreasing (often for good reasons), it is shifting towards individuals who can build and retain it, namely influencers. The calculation is the same as ever: trust means engagement, and engagement means revenue both for the influencer and the platform, so there is a natural profit driver towards trust and accountability.

A government worried about misinformation would do better to forget censorship and focus on establishing a trusted counter-narrative to whatever ‘misinformation’ it is that they are opposed to. The ability to push out misleading information en masse is not so threatening a capability as many fear: Clive Palmer and Michael Bloomberg’s attempts to buy votes failed dismally because they were lacking the trust necessary for their exorbitant campaigns to cut through.

It’s been said that the closest parallel to the disruption caused by digital media in our present age is the invention of the printing press. The printing press took the control of information away from the very few (bishops and kings) and put it in the hands of the few (writers and publishers). Today, digital media is continuing this shift away from the few towards the many (anyone with a phone). These shifts have always been resisted by the establishment because they hurt their ability to control the narrative, from the Protestant Reformation to the Voice to Parliament.

We should be unequivocal in our support of free speech and resistance to censorship, and instead focus on the real antidote to misinformation: engaged citizens who value truth and are taught from a young age how to think critically about the information they consume.