Quote of the day 31st July 2018

“We are facing nothing less than a crisis in our democracy, based on the systematic manipulation of data to support the relentless targeting of citizens, without their consent, by campaigns of disinformation and messages of hate.”


(Damian Collins MP, Conservative chairman of the House of Commons' all-party Culture, Media and Sport select committee.

He was speaking about the committee's interim report on "Disinformation and Fake News," which calls for updated rules for elections and referenda which take better account of the way social media campaigns now operate and better education about how reliable and truthful online information is - or all too often isn't.)

Comments

Jim said…
actually if you look at it all, you will get a far better picture of things than you will find, or wont find, on the Legacy media.
8:55 pm
Chris Whiteside said…
Both social media and the more traditional media contain a vast amount of information, some that is accurate and some that is not, some opinion that is reasonable and some that is daft, some things offered with integrity and some which is malicious.

Uncritical acceptance of everything you read in either is a recipe for disaster.

Both the law of libel, and rules for balance during elections in respect of the more traditional media are far more up-to-date than those for social media, which appear to be completely ineffective.
3:41 am
Anonymous said…
Brexit happened because of decades of "Disinformation and Fake News" peddled by the right wing traditional media and people like Damian Collins MP refusing to call it out as such.
6:42 pm
Chris Whiteside said…
There's an element of truth in the first half of that anonymous quote although if we are really trying to be honest there was a lot of disinformation and fake news on both the pro- and anti-EU sides of the argument even in the decades before the referendum.

I would argue that Brexit happened because the "Leave" campaign managed to persuade a lot of very disaffected people that voting "Leave" was the way to let "the establishment" know that they were unhappy.

Think you will find Damian was one of the people who did call out some of the fake news.
8:37 am
Anonymous said…
British bureaucrats do a good enough job of fxxking up Britain without the need to the help of European ones.
8:50 am
Chris Whiteside said…
I think that comment is representative of the views of a lot of leave voters.

And although I voted Remain - after weeks of agonising about how to vote - I don't think people who think that way are all idiots or racists either.

Many of the criticisms of the EU made in the press were untrue or unfair, but others were not. There were plenty of legitimate arguments on both sides.
4:06 pm
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