{"id":30443,"date":"2018-02-02T06:52:01","date_gmt":"2018-02-02T11:52:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=30443"},"modified":"2018-02-02T06:52:01","modified_gmt":"2018-02-02T11:52:01","slug":"the-fake-news-crusade-to-protect-you-from-free-speech","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=30443","title":{"rendered":"The &#8220;Fake News&#8221; Crusade to &#8220;Protect&#8221; You from Free Speech"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"print_content\">\n<h3><a href=\"https:\/\/www.gatestoneinstitute.org\/11821\/fake-news-free-speech\">The &#8220;Fake News&#8221; Crusade to &#8220;Protect&#8221; You from Free Speech<\/a><\/h3>\n<div class=\"byline\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"print_content_3\">\n<div>\n<ul class=\"content_preface_bullets\">\n<li>Even if judgements against some of these websites might be overturned in courts, doing so is clearly an enormous financial burden, as the would-be censors doubtless know. But what a handy way not to have one&#8217;s policies questioned &#8212; especially, one assumes, during elections.<\/li>\n<li>Attempts to censor &#8220;competing narratives&#8221; is probably just a tip-off that certain individuals are afraid their political ideas will be unable to withstand the questions asked or the test of time.<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;If a person cannot walk into the middle of the town square and express his or her views without fear of arrest, imprisonment, or physical harm, then that person is living in a fear society, not a free society.&#8221; \u2014 Natan Sharansky, <i>The Case for Democracy<\/i>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"article_body itemprop_articlebody\">\n<p>&#8220;If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear,&#8221; George Orwell wrote in his ant-totalitarian novel, <i>1984<\/i>. He would probably have frowned upon the latest UK Government <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/politics\/2018\/jan\/23\/new-national-security-unit-will-tackle-spread-of-fake-news-in-uk\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">blueprint<\/a> to create a regulatory agency that will ultimately strangle freedom of expression.<\/p>\n<p>Scrutiny against &#8220;Fake News,&#8221; is <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gatestoneinstitute.org\/10838\/sweden-fake-news\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">undoubtedly<\/a> a positive development. It means that at least people are <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gatestoneinstitute.org\/10108\/the-origin-of-fake-news-in-holocaust-denial\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">questioning<\/a> the news they are consuming. Yes, it is a problem that so much disinformation and misinformation exists. It is, however, a far bigger problem if they do not. The public&#8217;s resolve should be that disinformation is <i>not<\/i> combated by a regulatory body controlled by <i>Government<\/i>. Individual arguments, with evidence, is what belongs in a democracy, which can only survive if it is a marketplace of ideas.<\/p>\n<p>If having a Government body decide what can and cannot be published \u2013 thereby creating a culture of both official censorship <i>and<\/i> self-censorship &#8212; is not enough to concern you, the briefest glance at what this newly <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/politics\/2018\/jan\/23\/new-national-security-unit-will-tackle-spread-of-fake-news-in-uk\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">created<\/a> British body would consider &#8220;Fake News&#8221; should send you running into the street.<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;click on the above link to read the rest of the article&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The &#8220;Fake News&#8221; Crusade to &#8220;Protect&#8221; You from Free Speech Even if judgements against some of these websites might be overturned in courts, doing so is clearly an enormous financial burden, as the would-be censors doubtless know. But what a handy way not to have one&#8217;s policies questioned &#8212; especially, one assumes, during elections. Attempts [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[120,3447,2779,2703,18299,6948],"class_list":["post-30443","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-liberty","tag-censorship","tag-competing-narratives","tag-fake-news","tag-free-speech","tag-robbie-travers","tag-uk-government"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30443","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=30443"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30443\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30444,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30443\/revisions\/30444"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=30443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=30443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=30443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}