<
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/commentisfree/2023/oct/16/voice-referendum-aftermath-civics-yes-campaign-no-campaign>
"Australia, we have a civics crisis. The referendum has shone a spotlight on
how little we know about how we are governed.
The entire voice process has become an overdue civics lesson. Sadly, many
failed the test. This is not a comment on “yes” or “no”, but about how poorly
law-making as an act of governance is understood. An informed choice –
whichever way – was preferable to swallowing conspiracy theories and
misinformation.
So many social media messages about the referendum went “viral” even though
they can only be described as drivel, spouting views about the parliamentary
and legal system that were not just demonstrably wrong but laughingly
muddleheaded.
I will not amplify the misleading messages by referencing, linking or naming
them here. The specifics barely matter – it was the appetite for this rubbish
that startles me. That so many swallowed such nonsense and thought it worth
circulating as “truth” is of deep concern.
Social media misinformation is no less than a scam on democracy and an insult
to our values, a threat to our social fabric. We are at risk of being slowly
undermined by malicious mendacious gobbledegook.
When the “sovereign citizen” movement emerged during the stress of lockdowns in
the Covid pandemic, I – like so many – dismissed the phenomenon as the
inevitable byproduct of the unprecedented times that we were living through. I
naively thought this novelty was a passing fad, even slightly amusing. It did
not trigger any alarms.
Now, as the post-pandemic dust settles, we still see a surge in devotees to
these conspiracies. The sovereign citizen cult is not shrinking but continues
to grow. To stop our slide down the slippery slope to Trumpism, it is incumbent
on anyone even vaguely fond of democracy to take note and respond."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
