JYP today asks another provocative question.
Does the government have the right to remove posts that could misinform the public? Does the government have the responsibility to? Or is government take down of such posts a violation of free speech?
The knub of this question, it seems to me, is… whose responsibility is it to decide whether something is information or misinformation?
It strikes me that it’s the responsibility of the individual.
It seems fair enough if a government (or whatever body) says, we believe X. And to maybe add, and this is backed by so-and-so and so-and-so. And people can then judge for themselves the validity of the claim, the credibility of the supporters, etc. And can draw their own conclusion.
An example, nothing to do with vaccinations, is on human activity and climate change. Not particularly any government stance, either, but the climate change lobby has a great deal of science behind it when it makes its arguments, and that’s something that somebody can take on board in order to come to a judgement on the matter.
Or something like creationalism. When somebody claims that the earth is a few thousand years old, there’s a ton of evidence to dispute this. It’s there, for people to take on board, if they wish.
But it does not seem right that a government should suppress opinion with which it disagrees. If it does disagree, then it should put its own case more convincingly, surely? And allow its citizens to make an informed choice for themselves?
You know, just how much are we willing to allow a government to control?
Mister Bump 
❤️ Nice Post.
I hope you also follow mine and so WE GROW TOGETHER INTERACTING. Greetings from the south of Spain 💯🌈
Answer please 🙏
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Well said Pete. It should be left to people to judge the validity of the information. But at the same time…. Some people will believe anything!!!
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That’s one possible consequence, but it has to be thus. Otherwise you end up trying to classify who is intelligent enough to form their own opinion, and who is not. And we know that established tests like an IQ Test only serve a fraction of people.
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Indeed, that is best left to people to judge. Over here we are facing a very strict censorship of all news media. No news of the former PM and his political party is allowing on the media, government owned or private. But people still manage to get the news through twitter ( X) or YouTube videos. They are intelligent enough to know the fact from propaganda.
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It seems to be a downward spiral when we start censoring things. We have heard a fair bit about Pakistan recently, but we also hear allegations about Imran Khan being so corrupt… to the point where it just seems to be one person’s word against anothers. There’s such a lack of transparency… but the UK is the world’s worst for transparency.
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Oh he was the only honest politician we’ve had in decades. The rest and the military are the corrupt ones.
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Well said! It’s not a government’s role to judge information. There are plenty of examples of countries to see what this will lead to. Thought control as in George Orwell’s 1984 would be the inevitable result. We all have a right not only freedom of speech but also freedom of thought. But, as Sadie rightly commented: some people unfortunately believe anything..
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Yes, but that’s a risk we have to take. It’s better than the alternative.
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Agreed!
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I think you’re right about the responsibility question. And about the pitfalls of the government taking this on vs. the individual
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I do tend to agree!
I don’t think any government should control anyone!
Free speech should be free speech!
Just my thoughts!
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I don’t believe fully in free speech. If someone came on this blog and wrote an offensive comment, say, I’d have no problem censoring it. And I’ve actually done that three times over the years. But the difference is, I’m the owner of the blog, responsible for what readers see. A government, really, has no such interest of “ownership”.
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I don’t think it should be up to the government but I don’t see anything wrong with individual social media platforms taking down posts that don’t follow their own guidelines. Especially when that misinformation is causing violence or serious harm. It is their own platform, so it makes sense for owners of them to decide what is or isn’t allowed on there. But, yeah, I agree that it shouldn’t be up to governments.
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Just as it’s not a government’s job to decide between good and bad, I don’t believe it is a company’s job either. It’s for the individual. You know, what you’re saying is that it’s okay for somebody else to decide what we all see, and that’s where I have the problem.
I could maybe buy your argument if a post/comment damaged the company in some way – which could quite easily be a reputational risk if someone posted kiddie porn on their site, say – but the company should not have the power to decide right from wrong.
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No, true, but it is their site is what I meant. If I created a social media platform and then people were sharing things that turned it into something hateful, I’d have the right to take action. It’s MY site and if they want to go somewhere else where that’s okay then they can. I don’t think it’s crazy for owners of sites to create their own guidelines for something they’ve created. Just like how some bloggers delete negative trolling comments. It’s important for guests to know that the site is not theirs, and they need to accept it’s owner’s rules.
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I think it’s up to the individual with exceptions when it comes to hate speech or things that will cause others to be harmed.
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Yes tyhat sounds reasonable. Except that,,, who judges what is “hate speech” or not? As soon as we set a bar, then say “you must pass over it”, you open another can of worms.
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Agreed. It’s tricky for sure.
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