You may even be right but you can't, possibly, be allowed to say that

A claim from the United States:

America’s current disinformation crisis is the culmination of more than two decades of pollution of the country’s information ecosystem, Wardle said. The spread of disinformation on social media is one part of that story, but so is the rise of alternative rightwing media outlets, the lack of investment in public media, the demise of local news outlets, and the replacement of shuttered local newspapers with hyper-partisan online outlets.

“Disinformation” here is used in the sense of people saying things not approved of by fashionable orthodoxy. The solution, from the US, seems to be:

This “serious fragmentation” of the American media ecosystem presents a stark contrast with, say, the UK, where during some weeks of the pandemic, 94% of the UK adult population, including 86% of younger people, tuned into the BBC, a taxpayer-funded broadcaster, according to official statistics.

This would only work if that taxpayer-funded broadcaster limited expressed views to those that are fashionably approved of. We have Owen Jones for that:

But there is nothing so cruel as false hope, and during a pandemic in which people’s lives depend on adherence to social distancing measures, it can be dangerous. Sikora is not a virologist or an epidemiologist: he is a cancer specialist. That should not preclude him from commenting on coronavirus: newspapers and TV programmes abound with non-specialists discussing the government’s response to the crisis, which is as it should be in a democracy. What matters is that he dissents from the medical consensus on how the virus should be defeated.

We would say that dissent from the fashionable mantras is actually the point of that free speech. In fact, of democracy, the aim being that the people decide rather than the fashionable. This is not what Jones means, not at all:

Whether the aim is balance or sensationalism – or perhaps the latter hidden under the guise of the former – the producers and editors who provide Sikora with a platform should pause to reflect on the consequences of their decisions.

Doesn’t that just sound so Soviet? Of course all are free to speak, write and publish. But you should reflect on the consequences of your decisions as you do so for The Party is watching.

Even if we sidestep those historical overtones the claim itself is ludicrous anyway. In the utilitarian, rather than liberty, sense this free speech and information flow thing only works if all views are included. This is the lesson of the wisdom of the crowds, or further back of Galton’s Ox. It is only when all views are expressed then weighed in the balance that reality is approached. Curtailment, whether of just the extremes or more worryingly of one side or another leads only to groupthink.

And let’s be honest about it the perpetuation of groupthink is propaganda, not anything else.

It also seems to be remarkably short sighted of progressives in both the US and the UK to insist upon such Right- and Wrong-Think designations. After all, they see themselves as speaking truth to power, of educating all into overthrowing that comfortable orthodoxy. But if the orthodoxy is all that can be publicly said then how are they going to do that?