{"id":64741,"date":"2023-01-15T07:48:52","date_gmt":"2023-01-15T12:48:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=64741"},"modified":"2023-01-15T07:48:52","modified_gmt":"2023-01-15T12:48:52","slug":"how-can-we-trust-institutions-that-lied","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=64741","title":{"rendered":"How Can We Trust Institutions That Lied?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"institutions<\/div>\n

How Can We Trust Institutions That Lied?<\/a><\/h3>\n<\/header>\n
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Trust the Authorities, trust the Experts, and trust the Science, we were told. Public health messaging during the Covid-19 pandemic was only credible if it originated from government health authorities, the World Health Organization, and pharmaceutical companies, as well as scientists who parroted their lines with little critical thinking.<\/p>\n

In the name of \u2018protecting\u2019 the public, the authorities have gone to great lengths, as described in the recently released\u00a0Twitter Files<\/strong>\u00a0(1<\/a>,2<\/a>,3<\/a>,4<\/a>,5<\/a>,6<\/a>,7<\/a>) that document collusion between the FBI and social media platforms, to create an illusion of consensus about the appropriate response to Covid-19.<\/p>\n

They suppressed \u2018the truth<\/a>,\u2019 even when emanating from\u00a0highly credible scientists<\/a>, undermining scientific debate and preventing the correction of scientific errors. In fact, an entire bureaucracy of censorship has been created, ostensibly to deal with so-called MDM\u2014\u00a0misinformation<\/strong>\u00a0(false information resulting from human error with no intention of harm);\u00a0disinformation<\/strong>\u00a0(information intended to mislead and manipulate);\u00a0malinformation<\/strong>\u00a0(accurate information intended to harm).<\/p>\n

From fact-checkers like\u00a0NewsGuard<\/a>, to the European Commission\u2019s\u00a0Digital Services Act<\/a>, the UK\u00a0Online Safety Bill<\/a>\u00a0and the BBC\u00a0Trusted News Initiative<\/a>, as well as\u00a0Big Tech and social media<\/a>, all eyes are on the public to curtail their \u2018mis-\/dis-information.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cWhether it\u2019s a threat to our health or a threat to our democracy, there is a human cost to disinformation.\u201d<\/em>\u00a0\u2014 Tim Davie, Director-General of the\u00a0BBC<\/a><\/p>\n

But is it possible that \u2018trusted\u2019 institutions could pose a far bigger threat to society by disseminating false information?<\/p>\n

Although the problem of spreading false information is usually conceived of as emanating from the public, during the Covid-19 pandemic, governments, corporations, supranational organisations and even scientific journals and\u00a0 academic institutions have contributed to a false narrative.<\/p>\n

\u2026click on the above link to read the rest\u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How Can We Trust Institutions That Lied? Trust the Authorities, trust the Experts, and trust the Science, we were told. Public health messaging during the Covid-19 pandemic was only credible if it originated from government health authorities, the World Health Organization, and pharmaceutical companies, as well as scientists who parroted their lines with little critical […]<\/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":[33581,32474,29341,3717,16783,15262,496,512,1426,607,705,1169,815,819,33536],"class_list":["post-64741","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-liberty","tag-abir-ballan","tag-brownstone-institute","tag-covid","tag-disinformation","tag-expertise","tag-legacy-media","tag-mainstream-media","tag-media","tag-misinformation","tag-pandemic","tag-science","tag-social-media","tag-trust","tag-twitter","tag-twitter-files"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64741","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=64741"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64741\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":64742,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64741\/revisions\/64742"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=64741"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=64741"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=64741"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}