Sooo, but like, misinformation…?
Is it really worse than it was in the late 1700s, when our Constitution was written, and word traveled on horseback, or by boat across seas? Or during the 1938 “War of the Worlds” radio broadcast pandemonium? Or when Harry told Sam that Sally did what to Harold according to Jill’s niece Jane, and the whole farm went up in flames and lives were ruined for generations to come?
Is it worse than during the Civil Rights era, when activists, journalists, and political leaders alike were endlessly pointing the finger at one another, back and forth, each accusing the other of lies, manipulation, and deceit? While innocent people were being jailed, harassed, and attacked, by the powers that be (were)? Or during the Holocaust, and for those propaganda artists who still follow in Leni Riefenstahl’s footsteps? Is it worse than tobacco industry advertising campaigns? Or the much more recent opioid epidemic perhaps; featuring the very same villains of industry that some of these ‘misinformation’ laws are now seeking to protect?
I would have thought there might be less misinformation now, in a way… than when word traveled by oxen, telegram, unchecked rumors and gossip, and/or by word of mouth. Have you ever seen some of the things that were printed in mid 1900s tabloids? I have. Did you witness the dark side of the wild-wild-west internet at its advent? I did. During the 1990s, 2000s, the era that brought us here. And at times it was quite terrible indeed. A mirror for all our social ills, if you will. A mirror is not always so pretty to look into, sometimes the image is a bit distorted, the angle off, the perspective warped, or maybe it’s even cracked; the lighting shadowed and unnatural, reflective, deflective, wounded, scarred… Perplexing, echoing our thoughts like a ricochet of old trauma, ancient trauma; a nightmare, or perhaps just a bad hair day?
// / Mirror mirror on the wall, whose truth is The Most Truthful of All? \ \\
But then… Suppose any of these now historically-recognized forces of malice had won the upper hand, and the right to define what “misinformation” was? Good thing the good guys are in charge now, and it’ll always stay that way, I guess, right? Because God Forbid