Our moral panic plays into the hands of Big Tech
Just before the Russian invasion of Ukraine consumed the media, New York Times columnist Jay Caspian Kang and Substacker Matthew Yglesias published near-simultaneous critiques of the notions of “disinformation” and “misinformation”. This convergence among prominent liberals was significant. These and related concepts like “fake news” have shaped press coverage of a range of issues since the presidential contest of 2016 and have legitimised a new, censorious speech regime on tech platforms. But they usually go unquestioned on the Left.
