A judge just threw out Donald Trump’s lawsuit against Twitter that challenged his ban from the social media platform. U.S. District Judge James Donato rejected Trump’s claim that Twitter violated his right to freedom of speech guaranteed under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. He simply declared that Twitter is a private company, and ‘the First Amendment applies only to governmental abridgements of speech, and not to alleged abridgements by private companies.’ When Trump’s account (with over 88 million followers) was suspended by Twitter, he went on to set up his own platform Truth Social which apparently has not done very well. Now, the question arises over whether Twitter’s takeover by Tesla CEO Elon Musk will offer Trump a possible return to the social media platform.
Marshall McLuhan, a well-known Canadian philosopher whose work was among the cornerstones of the study of media theory in the late sixties, coined the expression “the medium is the message” and the term “global village”. He is credited with predicting the World Wide Web (WWW) almost 30 years before it was invented. Little did he know, having passed away in late 1980, of the incredible eventual impact on our daily lives of the Internet. The Internet is this generation’s equivalent to the telegraph, the telephone and the fax machines that allowed us to communication instantaneously and broadly across the globe. However, as a marvellous communication tool, the Internet has also proven to be more susceptible to the spreading of misinformation and disinformation than any other means in modern times.
When one talks of ‘misinformation’, one is normally referring to suspect, invalid and often poorly researched information passed on by persons to other persons via social media for example. Often such information is transmitted without real malice, but simply and inadvertently by persons accepting the information as being valid or such that supports preconceived views, referred to a ‘confirmation bias’. ‘Disinformation’ on the other hand is where someone is deliberately providing false information in support of their causes, goals or conspiracy theories, similar to what we would view as propaganda. Unfortunately, we are seeing a lot more disinformation being conveyed via the Internet then ever before. States or organizations that want to control the flow of information for their own purposes are notorious for facilitating the spread of disinformation, especially as a form of mind control within their borders. One needs to go no further for examples than Russia, North Korea and Iran.
Unfortunately, during the Covid-19 pandemic, certain groups within the U.S. and Canada began disinformation campaigns against the public health measures introduced by many governments to deal with the tragic consequences of Covid on our lives. The information was used to justify anti-vax, anti-mask, anti-lockdown and other public health mandates, regardless of their evident effectiveness in controlling the spread of Covid and reducing the number of associated deaths and hospitalizations. These campaigns of course led to numerous protests in both countries easily and quickly arranged via social media, often tying up scarce government resources. In addition, groups have used the Internet to spread ridiculous conspiracy theories, the most notable being that which promoted the belief that the results of the 2020 Presidential election were affected by corrupt voter fraud. This culminated in a mob of Trump supporters attacking the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, after Trump repeatedly said that he would never concede the legitimate election.
We must do a better job of educating future generations about the potential pitfalls of relying on one or two sources for information, particularly those who rely on non-verifiable and suspect origins. We need to be much more suspect when assessing the accuracy and validity of our Internet sources, be they found in social media or on websites. I might suggest strongly that we include mainstream news media and websites provided by objective professional organizations as an integral and regular part of one’s information sources. Perhaps this is easier said than done. After all, access to information via social media in particular is quick and dirty. Regrettably, this is what the purveyors of disinformation and misinformation are counting on.
FROLITICKS 
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