Americans are desperate for a reliable source of truth; we have an answer.
America’s Quest for Truth
By: George Noga – June 26, 2022
This is a sequel to our post of May 8, 2022, available on our website: www.mllg.us. Musk’s acquisition of Twitter has progressives all atwitter. They are in a panic that truly free speech will blast gaping holes in their dike of lies, obfuscation and maskirovka. This post explores how content moderation (if any) might operate in a truly free speech environment. We follow that up with an intriguing idea for how America can have a 100% accurate, objective and principled source of truth.
Content Moderation for a Post Elon Musk Twitter
There is a strong impulse to want to eliminate content moderation altogether; upon reflection, this is impractical. As a private company, Twitter can moderate speech as it chooses. There should be no dispute about eliminating certain users (bots) and content (porn and spam). Personal threats and incitement to violence also should be banned.
Other than the few exceptions noted supra, there should be no moderation whatsoever. That means no moderation for misinformation or even for clearly false content. That means no moderation for hate speech or slurs whether racial, gender, ethnic, religious, LGTBQ+ or against any other protected groups. Above all, that means absolutely no viewpoint moderation. We agree with Barack Obama when he said, “The strongest weapon against hateful speech is not repression, it is more speech.”
Technologically, it is possible for users individually to opt-in or to opt-out of offensive speech moderation. That seems like a solution that should please everyone; there would be free speech for most, while sheltering snowflakes from microaggressions.
Fair Witnesses as a Source for Truth
Journalism in America died many years ago. Fake news, misinformation and outright lies proliferate. Fact checkers are politicized and corrupt. There is no accurate, principled, competent, unimpeachable and non-political source for checking facts.
One answer lies in the Fair Witness concept originated by Robert Heinlein in his 1961 book, Stranger in a Strange Land. The fair witness concept resonated with me when I read Heinlen’s book; apparently, it also resonated with a great many others. Despite the fair witness concept being but a small part of an obscure book published over 60 years ago, it has 95 million Google hits – – 50% more than Elvis Presley and Pope Francis. Note: A similar concept, Mentats, was created by sci-fi writer Frank Herbert (Dune).
Heinlein’s book is set in the milieu of an overbearing government (familiar?). The only way citizens could counter the overweening power of the state was to hire a fair witness, a specially trained person so truthful and objective as to be unimpeachable. Fair witnesses were professionals with an eidetic memory and trained to make no extrapolations or assumptions and to report exactly what is observed; they wore distinctive white robes and were accorded deferential treatment by all of society.
Americans hunger for a reliable source of truth. A fair witness concept could be implemented today. It must be led by a person or organization that commands unquestioned credibility. The staffing could come from consulting firms, big four accounting firms, judges and scientists. The training must be rigorous. All work would be peer reviewed and would have to be right nearly 100% of the time. There would be a Chinese Wall such that those doing the work don’t know who is paying for it.
A huge market for truth exists; the time is right; the public is ready. Imagine the possibilities! It would bring about a renaissance in politics, the media and marketing. Consider the situation if politicians no longer could get away with a lie. Good science fiction speaks to us today. That’s why an idea that appeared on only a few pages of an obscure sci-fi tract published 61 years ago resonates with 95 million people today. Anything that informs people of the truth can be nothing but an unalloyed blessing.
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More Liberty Less Government – mllg@cfl.rr.com – www.mllg.us
