I’ve never seen a more articulate analysis of the problem with Big Censorship than this X post from a fellow named Hunter Ash (@ArtemisConsort). It is in full, in chunks below, with some commentary. He begins:
The concept of disinformation is inherently authoritarian. It presumes some faultless source from which truth flows, such that all speech can be judged by its alignment with this source.
Exactly. It presumes there is always One Truth when often, as there are in human affairs, many shades of grey. Requiring an assertion to be in “alignment” with this One Truth creates a whole cavalcade of downstream effects, most notably, a big ol’ “Says WHO?” from (normal!) interested parties. And in fact, Mr. Ash answers the “Says WHO?” almost immediately [Brackets and bold text added.]:
Yes, sometimes certain issues are fairly clear-cut and people are just lying, but more often people fundamentally disagree about both facts and methods. They disagree about who is trustworthy and what institutions and processes are most likely to produce truth.
I, as a private citizen, might call some claim a lie or some person a liar. That’s discourse. I hope to persuade others that I am correct. But to institutionalize disinformation [it] is necessarily to institutionalize a priest caste of truth determiners. This is antithetical to the scientific method and the process of knowledge production in general.
“A priest caste of truth determiners” is the “Says WHO” and would be a very desirable board to to be on if you’re conservative, but we all know conservatives need not apply to a Ministry of Truth. And even if we did, and by some miracle they let us on, even as a token, we’ve seen what can happen. Objectively true things fall out of favor and it all goes to hell, becoming a jumbled mess of this and that or another thing which will make us all equal or something. For instance, X/Y=M AND X/X=F. What happens when that’s not The Preferred Narrative? They butcher it! We’ve all seen it: “Gender and sex are two different things!” Or “Gender is an artificial construct!” Good grief.
Mr. Ash goes on. [Bold added.]
Truth-seeking must start from a place of humility: we are not sure of our claims or our methods. We are doing our imperfect best. We demonstrate the value of our ideas via evidence, argument, and the practical utility they provide. Not by censoring competing ideas.
It is ludicrous to assume that modern academic or journalistic institutions are bias-free oracles, yet this is the basis of the “disinformation” concept.
“Truth-seeking must start from a place of humility” is a profound statement and we should not speed by it, because it’s at the root of everything.
Where does humility come from? For most of us humility is recognizable when we feel a sense of awe. And where does one feel a sense of awe? With God, of course. Yes, seeing a magnificent natural vista can also inspire awe but I would argue that without God, the humility does not come. It’s the genuine sense of gratitude that a Supreme Being bestowed such beauty upon us mere mortals that is the cause of that humility. Without God, and in the narcissistic brain of the modern leftist, that magnificent vista just becomes the view one deserves…
In any case, congratulations to Mr. Hunter Ash for putting into so few words what had to be said about Big Censorship.