One of the most notable aspects of the recently published ‘National Counter Disinformation Strategy’ was the way in which it was entirely couched in ‘rights’-based language: touted as a principles- and rights-based roadmap, it makes amply clear that in order to uphold the rights of its citizens, the State has some work to do on the mis- and dis-information front.
I’m endlessly troubled by the Soviet-esque phraseology that’s entered into the mainstream with misinformation and disinformation, but I can’t deny that there seems to be something to the concern about the phenomenon they’re intended to identify. As time has gone by, my social media feeds seem to be increasingly dominated by accounts of suspect humanity, making the dumbest points you’ve ever seen – in almost every direction you can imagine.
What the intentions behind these accounts are, whether they be real or artificial, is ultimately anybodies’ guess, but that their contribution to the public square is just noise, and often either incorrect or malicious noise at that, cannot be denied. At least as far as X is concerned, monetising posting has made things worse. So there is a problem.
But I’ll tell you what won’t solve the problem, and in fact risks making things unfathomably worse: the State’s involvement, in any capacity – including through State-adjacent bodies and approved organisations -, in combating mis- and dis-information, which is precisely what a rights- and principles-based approach to the matter gets you.
Were one of the members of the working group behind the strategy to read me bemoaning their “rights-based” approach, they’d likely throw their hands up and despair that they can ever appease such a person. And in some sense I’d understand that. But what they would need to understand is that while it absolutely is the State’s place to uphold freedom of speech and expression, it is not the State’s place to insinuate itself into the country’s media ecosystem by various ways and means in an effort to defend a growing list of disparate rights and principles about which it is concerned, on its own initiative and the European Union’s: that all members of society should be “empowered to seek, receive and impart information and ideas”; balancing the right to freedom of expression with “rights such as privacy, protection from discrimination and data protection under the GDPR”. The right of children to access information. The list goes on.
The potential for abuse here should be obvious for all to see. If the State decides that its growing involvement in the media environment is required in order to protect and uphold ever-more rights and principles – to provide and support “high quality” journalism through its media regulator for the population, to note just another – where is the line on State involvement in media to be drawn? Anything can ultimately be justified, if the threat is severe enough.
And the threat, we’re told, is most definitely severe enough. The Strategy points to the World Economic Forum’s identification of “disinformation and misinformation” in its Global Risks Report as the “most severe global risk anticipated over the next two years” as evidence of the need to tackle the issue. Doesn’t get much more serious than that.
However, in an effort to offer constructive criticism rather than mere criticism, I might suggest that – acknowledging as I did above that an information problem of some shape or form does, in fact, exist – the key is to change tack, from Government and related-bodies concerning themselves with taking greater measures to secure rights, to encouraging the public to take responsibility for what they read and write. This would be, in this writer’s humble opinion, infinitely more sensible, and safer to boot.
Whereas rights-talk always at least leaves the door open to State intervention and involvement, a focus on responsibility is entirely in accordance with that almost dead-and-buried principle in Ireland, subsidiarity.
For those who don’t know, ‘subsidiarity’ refers to the eminently sensible idea that lower levels (such as the individual, the family, the community, etc.) ought to handle matters and address issues before higher, centralised authorities (like local, national and supranational authorities, etc.) get involved. Those higher powers are only to be called upon when a smaller entity is incapable of managing whatever it’s dealing with.
The notion of subsidiarity has its roots in Catholic Social Teaching, stemming from Pope Pius XI’s 1931 encyclical Quadragesimo Anno, in which he wrote that “it is an injustice and at the same time a grave evil and disturbance of right order to assign to a greater and higher association what lesser and subordinate organizations can do”.
Whether it’s a Government task force convened to reopen the Bray to Greystones cliff walk in Wicklow, or Government stepping in to steer the media and public approach to mis- and dis-information – there are many lower levels to invoke prior to the Government and its media regulator – that subsidiarity and a sense of responsibility are rapidly disappearing can hardly be denied.
Far from straying into the opposing extremes of pie-in-the-sky idealism or oppressive moralising, a Government initiative to remind people to tell the truth or pursue the truth in their posting and perusing would be far, far less risky than inviting the State into a vital industry and civic space beyond the absolutely necessary degree of required involvement.
But that would require a State that has its metaphysical priors in order. Like Pilate, our rulers have taken to asking “What is truth?” with greater regularity, in relation to a dizzying variety of fundamental topics, whether it be on matters of sex or society. This tendency, though, is all the proof we should need to raise the alarm about greater Government involvement in monitoring and policing the information space.