Lies, obfuscation and fake news make for a dispiriting – and dangerous – election campaign
Facebook’s irresponsibility when it comes to fake news is tainting democracy and the 2019 election campaign, according to Denis Muller in this crossposting from The Conversation.
The integrity of Australia’s electoral processes is under unprecedented challenge in this federal election. The campaign has already been marred by fake news, political exploitation of social media falsehoods and amplification by mainstream media of crude slurs made on Facebook under the cover of anonymity.
We have seen our first recorded instance of Facebook running Australian fake news.
It was a false post about the Labor Party’s tax policies, wrongly saying Labor intended to introduce a 40% inheritance tax.
‘Disgrace to journalism’
Accurate indeed.
What about ScoMo repeatedly bleating “Back in Black” when the Secretary of The Treasury in the Pre Election Budget Update has 2018-2019 as a $4.3b deficit?
Maybe ScoMo didn’t read it and it was a genuine mistake. A few hundred times.
With the government debt doubling under the current administration in fewer than six years to over half a trillion dollars maybe “Highway To Hell” is more appropriate.
The genius of fake news is in its plausibility.
That the political class, seemingly the world over, is so debased that these maelstroms of misinformation are believable is the real problem.
It really wasn’t that long ago that these policies and utterances would be immediately identified as stupid if they were ever to enter the public domain. Not any more. In their manic determination to hold whatever shrinking power they think exists, any politician of any persuasion may well have said any of it.
As an aside, anyone reminded of the iconic 1993 ‘Marge vs The Monorail’ episode of The Simpsons when you see Clive Palmer’s fast train ad? No? Just me then.
I’d trust Lyle Lanley over Clive Palmer any day.
Shouldn’t this article have at least mentioned Mediscare? Labor almost turned the election with deplorable fake news tactics at the last election. Both parties are complicit, but from reading this you’d conclude that the dirty politics is on one side only.
Whether or not you think ‘Mediscare’ was ‘fake news’, the article is about the 2019 Federal Election.
I don’t think that’s valid. This article opens by saying the integrity of Australia’s electoral processes at this election are “unprecedented”. That’s wrong. Mediscare is a very clear precedent. Take the text messages from purporting to be from “Medicare” that were sent to voters about Malcolm Turnbull’s supposed privatisation plans. The tactics are very similar to the death tax issue – I’d be surprised if the Coalition didn’t take the template direct from Mediscare.