{"id":99954,"date":"2026-04-12T01:00:31","date_gmt":"2026-04-12T05:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=99954"},"modified":"2026-04-11T10:25:39","modified_gmt":"2026-04-11T14:25:39","slug":"qotd-disinformation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2026\/04\/12\/qotd-disinformation\/","title":{"rendered":"QotD: &#8220;Disinformation&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote><p><a href=\"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/QotD-thumbnail-400x400.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"float:right; padding: 0px 0px 10px 25px\" src=\"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/QotD-thumbnail-400x400.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" height=\"400\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-48672\" srcset=\"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/QotD-thumbnail-400x400.png 400w, https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/QotD-thumbnail-400x400-150x150.png 150w, https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/QotD-thumbnail-400x400-50x50.png 50w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<ul>\n<p><strong>Neil Stone<\/strong> @DrNeilStone<br \/>\n<em>X is coordinated disinformation packaged as Free Speech<\/em><\/p>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The concept of disinformation is inherently authoritarian. It presumes some faultless source from which truth flows, such that all speech can be judged by its alignment with this source.<\/p>\n<p>Yes, sometimes certain issues are fairly clear-cut and people are just lying, but more often people fundamentally disagree about both facts and methods. They disagree about who is trustworthy and what institutions and processes are most likely to produce truth.<\/p>\n<p>I, as a private citizen, might call some claim a lie or some person a liar. That&#8217;s discourse. I hope to persuade others that I am correct. But to institutionalize disinformation is necessarily to institutionalize a priest caste of truth determiners. This is antithetical to the scientific method and the process of knowledge production in general.<\/p>\n<p>Truth-seeking must start from a place of humility: we are not sure of our claims or our methods. We are doing our imperfect best. We demonstrate the value of our ideas via evidence, argument, and the practical utility they provide. Not by censoring competing ideas.<\/p>\n<p>It is ludicrous to assume that modern academic or journalistic institutions are bias-free oracles, yet this is the basis of the &#8220;disinformation&#8221; concept.<\/p>\n<p>Hunter Ash, <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/ArtemisConsort\/status\/2004788732432711717\" target=\"_blank\">The social media site formerly known as <em>Twitter<\/em><\/a>, 2025-12-27.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Neil Stone @DrNeilStone X is coordinated disinformation packaged as Free Speech The concept of disinformation is inherently authoritarian. It presumes some faultless source from which truth flows, such that all speech can be judged by its alignment with this source. Yes, sometimes certain issues are fairly clear-cut and people are just lying, but more often [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[84,10,28,53,41,15],"tags":[459,1085,322,1574],"class_list":["post-99954","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-government","category-liberty","category-media","category-politics","category-quotations","category-technology","tag-censorship","tag-fakenews","tag-nannystate","tag-technocracy"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-q0a","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99954","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=99954"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99954\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":101826,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99954\/revisions\/101826"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=99954"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=99954"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=99954"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}