Up the propaganda, Comrades!
This is a less than convincing commitment to civil liberty and free speech:
Sir Keir Starmer wants to force social networks and video platforms to make BBC content more prominent.
Under plans to further restrict private media firms, news from public service broadcasters would be given priority to fight “disinformation”.
The proposals will set Sir Keir on a collision course with tech giants already frustrated by his under-16s social media ban.
The Government is expected to start a consultation this week on the rules, which would force platforms such as Facebook and YouTube to boost content from the BBC, ITV and Channel 4.
The places which reflect - in a least two of those cases are government subsidised in fact - the establishment view should be given priority over those other places which do not. Well, of course the establishment would say that, wouldn’t they*?
This is no more - and no less - than an insistence that we must increase the propaganda. True, laudations about free breakfasts instead of tractor production statistics but all the same….
Why?
Sir Keir’s administration believes that this increases the spread of misinformation and disinformation.
The truth is what the government, the establishment, says it is and we mustn’t allow the populace to think any different.
In the grander sense this is the usual failure to understand the Wisdom of the Crowds argument. The collective chewing over which leads to the correct answer only works if all voices get their turn on the soapbox. This is an inherent part of Galton’s observations about the weight of that Ox. Start to edit the “obviously wrong” out of the conversation and incorrect results are reached.
In the more narrow sense it’s just so obviously weighted. You mean that state broadcaster gains privileged access to the nation’s attention? We have a variety of names for places like that, none of them complimentary. So, let’s not do that then.
Tim Worstall
*As ever, we acknowledge Ms Rice Davies’ contribution to political logic