In recent years, there has been an upsurge of concern about online misinformation and disinformation, with efforts to thwart it. In many cases, claims about false information serve to justify censorship. To better understand what’s going on, it’s useful to examine assumptions underlying the anti-misinformation enterprise.
The following is extracted from the article ‘Misinformation or Public Debate?’ written by Brian Martin and published by Propaganda in Focus. You can read the full article HERE.
For the purposes here, there’s no need to delve into the differences between misinformation and disinformation, between being wrong sincerely versus intentionally. There’s enough research on self-deception to question whether intent can be reliably determined.
For decades, there have been fierce public controversies over health-related issues, including nuclear war, smoking, nuclear power, pesticides, fluoridation and genetically modified organisms.