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Politics

La police de la vérité sous l’ère Trump

Oct 14, 2020 Robert Skidelsky

LONDRES – Le président américain Donald Trump a publié le 6 octobre un tweet dans lequel il affirmait que la grippe ordinaire tuait chaque année « plus de 100 000 » Américains. « Allons-nous pour autant confiner le pays entier ? », interrogeait-il. « Non, nous avons appris à vivre avec, de la même manière que nous apprenons aujourd’hui à vivre avec le Covid, qui est dans la plupart des populations beaucoup moins mortel !!! »

La première affirmation de Trump est exacte : la grippe a tué plus de 100 000 Américains en 1918 et 1957. « Nous avons appris à vivre avec » est une question de point de vue, tandis que l’idée d’un Covid « beaucoup moins mortel » que la grippe dans la plupart des populations est un peu plus ambiguë (quelles populations, et dans quels pays ?).

Rien ne semble particulièrement inhabituel dans ce tweet, tant le penchant de Trump pour la suggestio falsi est bien connu. Seulement voilà, peu après cette publication, Twitter a dissimulé le tweet sous un message d’avertissement, expliquant qu’il enfreignait les règles de la plateforme concernant la « propagation d’informations fausses et potentiellement dangereuses liées au COVID-19 ». Facebook est allé encore plus loin, en retirant purement et simplement de son site une publication identique.

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Robert Skidelsky

Writing for PS since 2003
200 Commentaries

Robert Skidelsky, a member of the British House of Lords and Professor Emeritus of Political Economy at Warwick University, was a non-executive director of the private Russian oil company PJSC Russneft from 2016 to 2021. The author of a three-volume biography of John Maynard Keynes, he began his political career in the Labour party, became the Conservative Party’s spokesman for Treasury affairs in the House of Lords, and was eventually forced out of the Conservative Party for his opposition to NATO’s intervention in Kosovo in 1999.

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William Allan Oct 21, 2020

Robert Skidelsky argues reasonably enough that telling the truth is unlikely to become the basis of social media profitability. His second assertion, that policing of media truthfulness should not be left to state authorities is more contestable. He sees the debate about truthfulness of social media posting as ‘sterile and interminable.’ But questions of truth and reporting are fundamental to viable democracy and they long precede the emergence of the internet and social media. They have been central to past political debates and will remain legitimate for social and political debate for the foreseeable future. In the 1920s Walter Lippmann saw the role of the press of the time as providing ‘news,’ not truth, on time to the public; their income came from circulation and advertising rather than the quality or veracity of journalism. Much later, Rupert Murdoch from the 1980s to the present took the print and television media of the time to unprecedented levels of political influence in the UK, US, and Australia. His influence even survived the debacle of The News of the World phone-hacking and police bribery scandals, which were subject to official investigation and successful prosecution. The now dominant social media, as Skidelsky describes, have accumulated enormous financial wealth from their acquisition and use of personal data to target consumers. Their platforms, particularly Twitter and Facebook, contain a vast amount of personal and political detail that is not subject to strong professional oversight and can be used and abused—as well as being potentially subject to cyber-attack and manipulation. The social media surely need to be regulated to limit and potentially eliminate postings that are factually unsubstantiated and/or personally malicious. These tasks must be taken up by government, perhaps through independent agencies. The debate on truthfulness and objectives of both social and traditional media must continue.
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Sidney Hart Oct 20, 2020

"But facts can easily be manipulated. This has led postmodernists to claim that all truth is relative; worse, it is constructed by the powerful to maintain their power."

Skidelsky should not comment on things he does know anything about. Postmodernism is not relativism. First, in the world of philosophy, postmodernists like Derrida and Foucault have nothing in common with relativists like Feyerabend.

Second, manufacturing "truth" and then shaping people's perceptions is usually the obsession of dangerous politicians like Hitler and Lenin rather than of thinkers.
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Ian Maitland Oct 17, 2020

I am puzzled by the spectacle of so many sensible people wringing their hands over the discovery that politicians lie. Or by their apparent belief that if a lie is published on social media, Goetterdaemmerung must be just around the corner. Folks, get a grip on yourselves.

It is true that opportunities to spread disinformation have multiplied. But so have opportunities to to spread information. What ever happened to Brandeis's wise observation that "[i]f there be time to expose through discussion the falsehood and fallacies, to avert the evil by the process of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence"?

That is one reason why, say, the New York Times's censorship of Sen. Tom Cotton was so infamous. If Cotton was wrong, the proper response is to point that out, not to gag him.

The same goes for Trump's lies. If there are people foolish enough to trust Trump's medical advice, then the answer is not to gag the President (for goodness' sake!!), but for people who know better to point out that he is wrong.

The first step down the road to making social media platforms arbiters of the "truth" is already a step too far. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

Rather, let's use our legal process. We might beef up our defamation laws -- maybe not as far as the UK, but in that direction. I'd be open to giving victims of hate speech standing to sue the speakers (not the social media UNLESS the social media have taken on the role of policing speech). Currently our laws make it impossible for defamed groups to sue on behalf of their group. That should be looked into. Public officials and public figures are effectively shut out of our courts if they are defamed. That should change. Prior restraint is unacceptable, but why can't we grant more latitude for legal remedies after the fact?
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Michael Public Oct 15, 2020

You have found the problem and honestly admit no solution. There may be a solution, but it is not an 'easy solution' and requires changes to the system, not just tweaking it. I describe this in detail below:

Everything has to be paid for. Everything also has a certain benefit or detriment to society. People used to buy newspapers for a mixture of truthful reporting and entertainment content. But Newspapers were not cheap items, especially if you were just a working person and wanted to read every day, to say nothing of multiple sources to remove bias. There was no alternative, so you had to pay, and this money paid for investigative journalists as well as the lady who prepares the horoscope section. Typically, the investigative journalism was subsidized by the cross-word puzzle.

One day, magically, newspapers became free - theoretically paid for by pay-per-click advertising (or worse, by cynical people hoping to buy 'opinion manufacturing' services). Investigative journalism could no longer be subsidized - it had to be discarded.

The problem is that publishing the truth has a very high value in society - look at countries where the press is weak - bad things happen, economics typically suffer too, often just to keep some bad actor in the power seat. Look at healthy societies, they may not have complete trust in the press, but they have some trust in it, and virtually no-one would support a ban on it in favor of a government controlled press.

So what do we do when something has high social value but does not make enough money? Nothing. We just let it die in the dirt and check its wallet when it is dead. Which is why in America today we have no justice system, no federal government and no army - the advertising revenue is too little to support these services. If you are any good at detecting sarcasm you are probably getting what I am saying in the paragraph - that things with high social value but no good business model must be paid for by taxes. Like investigative journalism.

Woah, woah! I hear you all scream at once - if the government controlled the press we would be no better off than neo-soviet countries like North Korea, Russia or China. But hang on, I am not suggesting that something paid for by taxes HAS to be controlled by the government. It depends on how you structure it. In the US the courts are quite independent, still influenced by the appointment process, but definitely not government lackeys. If the president ordered the army to put all Democrats into camps - no chance they would do it.

So how would we structure such a press to ensure it is an independent guardian of the truth? Not easy but the following laundry list will suffice. Lets call them the IP - Independent Press.

1. Automatically, 0.1% of all tax receipts go to the IP - there is no budget allocation process with which to control them.
2. Like doctors - every IP member takes an oath - for what it is worth.
3. Every IP member must be audited - bank statements and private assets thoroughly checked. They may not have income streams incompatible with their independence.
4. They are appointed by a population vote - bottom up style - you choose someone you know who you trust - they in turn vote on regional, state, national and international IP members - they get paid a small fee for their services like a jury duty payment.
5. They can commandeer for free, 10% of space (or user attention) of every media platform, printed or digital, to publish whatever they want.
6. A general ban on any other news source describing themselves as independent press.
7. Laws which provide them with very heavy protection (legal, physical, financial) - as no doubt, many nations, politicians and many businesses have no interest in the truth at all - and will fight hard to keep it that way.
8. Many more things I am sure you already thought of - like I said - this is not the easy fix. But we put a man on the Moon and built a hydrogen bomb - so we can get it right.

Of course, there is no way any thing like the above will come into existence without bipartisan support and likely a constitutional amendment - something which is near impossible in the current toxic sludge environment of outrage/fake news driven media cycle.

Perhaps it is possible right now in a less toxic country - New Zealand or Sweden or Germany or wherever. Or maybe not.

But at least an answer IS imaginable, and public sentiment can change in time, when people are sick to death of the current media and want to actually create a better system, options do indeed exist.

Until then, things will get worse - so place your head on the seat in front of you and brace for impact.
- Daniel Esmond Oct 17, 2020
  
  This system already exists: in the UK the BBC is financed through a flat tax, which this year is about £160 (about 200 USD). It funds a broadcasting model that is relatively independent, impartial and credible. Unfortunately, the current Conservative government wants to change this and it will decriminalise the non-payment of this tax (called a licence fee). This will lead to loss of revenue, then cuts in output. Also, there are demands to privatise some parts, like some of the more profitable radio stations and to close down the online news site. The Conservatives primarily do it in response to long standing demands from Rupert Murdoch (and some other rightwing media outlets) to cut down the size of the BBC and eliminate its dominance in the UK. While the BBC model is not perfect, it had fairly broad support accross the political spectrum and in society, until now. So while the model for a sustainable independent journalism exists, the current conservative revolution will make sure it is eliminated.
  Another model worth considering is that of the Guardian Group - substantial endowment, plus advertising and sales, but also growing online subscriptions. This model indicates the need for mixed sources of revenues as no single source is likely to be sufficient.
  For a more theoretical discussion of how we got here see Jurgen Habermas' discussion of the public sphere and the evolution of commercial media.
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Prashant Kotak Oct 14, 2020

Interesting piece, thank you.
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