Andrew Stuttaford expresses his skepticism of recent efforts around the world to support “quality journalism,” either through regulation or public funding. He suggests that these proposed solutions to disinformation have problems of their own, claiming that government sponsorship of news media subjects it to manipulation.
Hague argues that such algorithms should be published (not a bad idea), but also appears to believe that they should be programmed to furnish feeds “with news and comment from some alternative way of thinking so that people are not forever living on a diet of views and advertisements that confirm everything they already think.”
Hague is right to think that it’s not healthy to rely solely on information that is ideologically slanted one way (FWIW I try to make sure that I don’t), but it’s a big leap to go from that reasonable observation to insist that people must be served up with alternative views. And who decides what is or is not a sufficiently “alternative” way of thinking, and, for that matter, which of those alternatives to publicize?
The opportunity for manipulation of the audience, but this time with the force of law behind it is obvious. That this is being proposed by a former Tory leader is yet another reminder of just how far the Conservative party has been transformed from a party that paid at least some respect to the individual to being a party of the state.
Source: Fake News, Censorship, and Slush Funds | National Review