Scott Kamps
Thoughtful people recognize knowledge has real-life consequences and believing false information can be harmful – even deadly.
While misinformation/disinformation has existed since the serpent in the garden, social media has exacerbated damage that can be caused by deception; knowledge can now spread globally in minutes. There is no remedy to eliminate the risk from fabrications – unintentional or intentional – in the information age.
This is largely because while individuals/groups can spread misinformation, there is also the very real Orwellian threat. The government combating disinformation – adjudicating truth/falsehood – could be feasible if we were governed by angels.
Since our leaders are flawed men, however, reasonable Americans – on the Right and Left – harshly criticized President Biden’s dystopian “Disinformation Governance Board” (May 2022). It was rightfully – hopefully permanently – paused after just three weeks.
The government is not neutral when it comes to controlling the flow of information. If there ever was a government run “Ministry of Truth” again, it should be one of the least-trusted information sources ever consulted. This highlights why the First Amendment is so important.
This principle was put on full display last week when the now-infamous Chinese spy balloon sailed over America.
How did we find out about it? The government didn’t tell us; a citizen saw it from an airplane, bringing it to national attention.
Soon after, we got a governmental explanation. We were told it wasn’t a threat to us and China wouldn’t learn any secrets from it.
How did our government know there was no weapon aboard or that espionage technology on the balloon couldn’t discover any American secrets?
Well, we should just trust them – after all, they’re the government; they’ll keep us safe!
Whether you believe Biden’s spiels about the balloon or agree on its handling is not the issue. My point is we would never have known of
the spy balloon from China in American airspace if not for an individual citizen bringing it to national attention, forcing the government to address it.
Would they have tackled the issue without the free flow of information?
Ponder this: we only just found out this wasn’t the first Chinese balloon to enter U.S. airspace because of this latest episode.
Similar things could be said about the whistleblower bringing national attention to the memo revealing the FBI had started targeting “radical” Catholics – those who are pro-life and attend Latin mass. The exposed memo has since been retracted by the FBI. I’m not Catholic, but I’m deeply concerned this retraction would not have taken place without the free flow of information.
For its part, China says the balloon incident was just an accident. They said it was a weather balloon with meteorology equipment on it that went adrift – which happened to “drift” into America directly over many of our sensitive military bases.
More evidence we shouldn’t trust a government.
It will never be worth trading freedom of speech for protection from misinformation/disinformation that any government with an agenda can offer.
In fact, I would trust a government offering that “protection” even less.
Scott Kamps writes a bi-weekly column for The Graham Star. He can be reached via email, thestableguy@frontier.com.