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November 25, 2024 - 7:00am
A new report by the British House of Lords has called for a review of so-called “brand safety” agencies such as Newsguard and the Global Disinformation Index (GDI), warning against “mission creep” and highlighting concerns about free speech.
The report sets out that “our evidence suggested some unease about mission creep”, adding that the term “disinformation” is, according to a Carnegie Endowment analysis, “often invoked quite loosely to denigrate any viewpoint seen as wrong, baseless, disingenuous, or harmful”. According to the Lords report, this then “risks deepening mistrust and undermining the legitimacy of tackling mis/disinformation across the board.”
This follows reporting earlier this year from UnHerd which revealed that ratings agencies, with funding from American, British and European governments, were blacklisting disfavoured media outlets in the name of stifling misinformation. These agencies assigned “brand safety” scores and discouraged advertisers from partnering with low-scoring outlets in order to starve them of revenue. UnHerd, for example, was blacklisted for publishing the work of gender-critical feminist Kathleen Stock.
In April, UnHerd’s Freddie Sayers told the House of Lords Communications and Digital Committee, chaired by Baroness Stowell, that the “disinformation movement” had “exacerbated losses in public trust and fast-forwarded the collapse in trust in the media and in government”. He revealed that the publication had seen a fall in advertising revenue after it received a poor rating from the GDI, which describes itself as a non-profit service “enabling advertisers to reduce the unintended monetisation of deceptive and highly adversarial online content”. Sayers argued at the time that this was an example of “detached and unaccountable actors” taking “very politicised views on things”.
The report added that “the rise of brand safety organisations has raised complex questions about the extent and implications of their work. The Government’s online advertising taskforce should review the work and impact of brand safety organisations on news publisher revenue.”
Further recommendations warn against such interventions as government-endorsed labels for quality news sources, and call for a more “proportionate” response to misinformation to avoid “undermin[ing] free speech”. Instead, the state should offer tax breaks for local journalism, particularly coverage focusing on democracy, and ramp up “media literacy programmes”. The report also requests increased protections for journalists, including from international threats.
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SubscribeWhat this ‘disinformation’ panic misses is that the wider the sources of information one draws upon the more likely one is to arrive at a reasonably accurate view. Plus the more exposure people have to misinformation the more discerning they will become.
Let’s not forget that, had there been social media in the 2000s, it would likely have been impossible for the left wing establishment to conceal the activities of the grooming gangs for so long. Without social media the BBC’s mis-reporting about – amongst so many other things – Trump’s supposed relationship with Putin and the fictional ‘insurrection’ of January 2021 as well as the motivation behind so many terrorist atrocities would never have been exposed. As late as January this year the Today programme was still telling its listeners that five people died in the Capitol ‘riot’.
Diversity of media is a good thing. Don’t let the control freaks destroy it.
All right, Mr. Bryant, I’ll bite.
What do you think happened in the centre of Washington on 5th Jan 2021, and why do you think your version of events is accurate?
the Today programme was still telling its listeners that five people died in the Capitol ‘riot’.
Why? Because this version is patently false.
Still waiting for Mr Bryant’s reply. How many did die, and what is the primary source for the information?
I don’t want the state involved in deciding what is and isn’t disinformation – period. I’m not on Twitter, but apparently they have a system for flagging misinformation that is organic and crowd sourced.
‘media literacy programmes’ are a waste of time, because taste, judgment, persective, intelligence, the facility, luxury or desire to do wide-ranging backround reading on various subjects of interest, can’t simply be formally taught.
The heuristic for the majority of people will continue to be tribalism and sectarian prejudice. Hence you’ll continue to get unreasonable smears of reasonable content from less established sources, or guilt by association, or ‘who funds them’ nonsense, etc…
I’m afraid the mainstream broadcast media outlets in the Western world have become so homogenised, stuffed to the rafters with the same type of people, with near identikit views and values in an echo chamber. The once very good now ghastly CNN being a prime example. That smug Maddows on MSNBC trying to convince us the Biden/Trump debate was a score draw.
Hence the emergence of GB News and the Podcasters. By the way there is a huge gap in the market for genuine more economic left wing options who don’t care for the Woke drviel.
The Beeb presenters looked like ghosts the day after EU referendum or open mouthed when Corbyn dented the Tories majority in 2017.
They are all privately educated, and the ones that aren’t don’t retain roots with their past happy to be absorbed into the Liberal Bias Metropolitan elite.
Hence they had no idea (and still don’t) of the disbenefits of industrial scale immigration and the self-defeating broad brush approach to austerity.
The state should just cut to the chase and release a publication containing the information they’ve deemed appropriate for us to know. They could call it “Truth”.
… or “Bring News”.
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There’s very little that can be done about the spread of alternative news, whether it’s accurate or not. The truth is I suspect people don’t mind being lied to as long as they’re being entertained. Mainstream news is drudgery and the cold reality of war and decline, whereas alternative and fake news is a torrent of LOLs and dopamine hits. It’s obvious which way the swarm will go.
I think you’re right. What do facts matter when one already has a position and opinion? The facts I know of are no use to me when talking with others who are arguing with obviously faulty information. Nor do I see things going in the direction I prefer just because I’m aware of objective, factual accounts. It comforts me to know the facts of things, which you would imagine any intelligent person would want, but it gives me no hope anymore. At times even the news services I support will play with words to give a story the angle they want. But it’s possible that in the end we’re all looking for facts to back up our feeling about things.
I have re-read your post and I keep stopping at “which you would imagine any intelligent person would want”. I agree with you that I want the facts and I think that those on UhHerd would agree with you, but…I see intelligent people who are interested only in themselves and close family. I have a reputation in family circles for knowing just a little too much for comfort in a social environment.
Unfortunately, most people I know are not interested in many things unless it affects them personally at that moment. We have one exception and she is so vociferous on line that she has had a couple of visits from our Thought Police – talking about these non-crime hate incidents.
I don’t quite know what do with the word “intelligent”. Obviously disagreeing with me doesn’t make people unintelligent. But in my experience the people who disagree with me throw patently incorrect things at me that are clearly incorrect, or if I check it out later I find it’s also correct. They either know they’re trying to mislead me or they’re happy to mislead themselves. These people I would call intelligent based on something we have between ourselves. But if they’re lying to me, or themselves, then how can I call them intelligent. Intelligent people can be wrong, but to me a mark of intelligence is a desire for truth.
I think most won’t mind being lied to as long as the lies match their preconceived opinions