Some half-baked thoughts: Whenever I talk about the problems with dominant “misinformation” discourse, I get the question, “What do you think we should do with the problems in our information environment?”

It’s a fair question, but there are two things I find frustrating about the way it’s usually presented:

1. It typically embodies an unstated technocratic assumption: that collective problems are the kinds of things that must be solved via top-down policies crafted by experts. This assumption is often mistaken. People have agency, and many important social changes can happen—and frequently must happen—bottom-up as people become increasingly aware of collective problems and take measures to address them. Not all things are amenable to technocratic management.

2. Relatedly, I invariably hear this question from people who don’t spend any time participating in public debate. They don’t have a blog, they don’t post on social media, they don’t try to write for a general audience, they don’t get involved in democratic politics, etc. In other words, it doesn’t cross their mind that they should have to address the problems they perceive in our information environment in a way that’s available to all other citizens in a liberal society. They assume that the public is something to be intervened on and regulated, top-down, rather than engaged with through rational argument and persuasion. I find that attitude suspicious. If you won’t take the time to actually participate in public debate, you shouldn’t be crafting policies to manage or regulate it.