‘Misinformation’ is the elite’s favourite weapon against common sense Britain
Andy Burnham should distance himself from a government-commissioned report that expresses tyrannical claptrap
BRENDAN O’NEILL
Have you heard? Biology is misinformation now. Refer to someone with a penis as a man and you might find yourself branded a peddler of falsehoods.
A report commissioned by the Government Office for Science lists “anti-trans” views as a species of misinfo. Given that the witch-like slur of “anti-trans” has been attached even to people who say that if you have a todger you’re a fella, this basically means scientific truth itself is now viewed as a demonic belief that must be caged and curtailed.
It’s bad enough when a pink-haired, genderfluid activist on TikTok rebrands science as fake news. But to see such anti-science drivel in a report commissioned by the Government Office for Science is truly wild.
The report is staggeringly Orwellian. It’s the handiwork of seven academics who were tasked by the Government with devising some best practice for “identifying and tackling harmful misinformation”. What they’ve actually come up with is a sweeping programme of mind-policing that would have even Big Brother thinking: “Guys, chill.”
The report focuses on 11 key categories of “misleading information”. One of the categories is “anti-LGBTQ+ narratives”, which includes dangerous chatter about “gender ideology”. Apparently it’s “harmful” to use the term “gender ideology” to describe trans ideas. I use that phrase all the time. Maybe I should turn myself in to the jumped-up Joe McCarthys of wokeness.
“Pride misrepresentation” is another example of “misleading information”. But who decides what counts as “Pride misrepresentation”? If I say it’s a shame Pride has gone from being a celebration of gay liberation to a parade featuring half-naked gyrating blokes and men dressed as dogs, is that “misrepresentation”? Photographic evidence would suggest otherwise.
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Mass immigration is likewise ring-fenced from “misinformation”. It is harmful, apparently, to “[associate] minority communities with crime or cultural threat”. But it isn’t “misinformation” to point out that men from Afghanistan are overrepresented in the offending rates for sexual assault. Or that Pakistani men are more likely to be suspects in the crime of group-based child sexual exploitation – what some call “grooming gangs”.
Demonising free, frank debate about the consequences of “diversity” has nothing to do with tackling misinformation. It’s about gagging ordinary people who are simply worried for their daughters and their nation.
The Telegraph: continue reading
(UKR)