The Telegraph reports:
[https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/08/31/eu-creates-ministry-of-truth-to-tackle-fake-online-news/]
EU accused of introducing ‘Orwellian ministry of truth’ to tackle fake online news
Under the new law web bosses must prioritise advice handed to them by a network of ‘trusted flaggers’ and fact-checkers
Cristian Terhes, a Romanian MEP, argued the bloc’s Digital Services Act (DSA) gives it sufficient powers to rule on what content it believes is and is not true when published on some of the world’s largest websites.
He told The Telegraph: “The European Commission has taken a page out of Orwell’s 1984 and demanded that EU member states set up government-sponsored ministries of truth to ensure that wrong thoughts and banned words are not allowed into the digital space.
“Surely in a democratic society, it’s the public who hear or have access to all arguments, who are the ones to make up their mind on the truth or attractiveness of certain facts, ideas or parties.
“Surely it is for the people to hear and decide what they hold as true or desirable rather than government bodies.”
Quite.
Which brings us to Caitlin Johnstone's take on this issue:
[https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/things-are-shitty-because-we-are]
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Truth and clarity paves the way to real revolutionary change. That’s why our rulers spend so much energy trying to obfuscate truth and clarity via propaganda, censorship, Silicon Valley algorithm manipulation, mainstream culture, AI, garbage education systems, and other forms of perception management. They’re doing everything they can to stop us from following the strings of our society’s ailments to the hands up above that are pulling them. They want us to be stupid, so we need to get smarter. They want us to be ignorant, so we need to inform ourselves. They want us to be uncaring, so we need to become more compassionate. They want us to be compliant, so we need to become disobedient. The world is a mess because our rulers want it to be a mess. So we need everything in us to be pushing in the exact opposite direction. |