Friday, 30 June 2023

The war on so-called disinformation”. It’s censorship by another name

 

From the Global Disinformation Index
Red arrows = ones I read regularly 
Dear Disinformation Index,

How can it be that every single one of the “Riskiest Sites” from your website are right-of-centre / conservative? How can this be? Not a single Left-of-centre site is “risky”? (Whatever “risky” means…).

I read the ones above marked in Red. As you see, I follow sites that are both on the Left and on the Right.

I know from personal experience that media on the Left have disseminated Disinformation by commission as well as the less-often-mentioned disinformation by omission.

Disinformation by commission:
Four years of Trump-Russia collusion theory, proven untrue by both Mueller Report and Durham Report. Promotion of the Hunter Biden laptop story as “Russian disinformation”, when it was clear to the shallowest research that it was not. All relentlessly pushed by all of the — allegedly — “Least risky sites”.
On China, an area I know something about, the reporting from the American Spectator is more germane and insightful than that from WaPo or the NY Times, let alone from the Huffpo (which I’m not able to stop myself calling a “rag”, sorry). Yet it’s the former that’s allegedly “Riskiest”. Not!

Disinformation by omission:
Failure to cover: the Mueller Report; the Durham Report (at least in any detail); the Hunter Biden Laptop Story; the Twitter Files story; the Joe Biden/China bribe story; the Joe Biden / Burisma corrupt use of government aid story. All of the — allegedly — “Least Risky sites” are guilty of this disinformation by omission (it’s almost as if they were the PR arms of the Democratic Party…).
The only place one will see reporting of such issues is on the right-hand side of this chart (perhaps WSJ aside). And, no, these are not “non stories". As I sit here in Hong Kong / China, it strikes me as very relevant to know of the the activities and of the potential corruption of the current US President. Yet on the “Less risky sites”… nada.

On the broader issue, what gives you the right to set up a “Disinformation Index”, something that goes agains the US First Amendment and Free Speech traditions across the West? I suggest nothing does, save your own hubris. Conning various governments to fund you doesn’t excuse this presumption.

This is breathtaking arrogation: You are arrogant to assign yourselves as arbiters of something that ought be left alone. Leave us alone to make up our own minds. Leave advertisers alone to make up their own minds.

Shame on you all.

Peter Forsythe
Hong Kong / China