For the life of me, I don't understand why the information environment today should be regarded as any more “turbulent” than it ever was. Long before the internet—indeed, before there were newspapers and magazines, or widespread public literacy—there was more 'misinformation' than reliable, evidence-based information, more speculative, often half-baked belief than provably correct opinion. The world we're born into has always been a confusing place, full of mysterious unknowns and conflicting claims, and from childhood onward navigating life and deciding for oneself which narratives are plausible and potentially useful, and which can be safely disregarded, has always been each individual's responsibility. If the responsibility is burdensome it's also exhilarating; in fact, it's arguably inevitable, the very thing that makes us autonomous human beings. Who among us would willingly give up the freedom to form our own judgments about what's true and false, right and wrong, which people and information sources we trust, and what our preferences and ethical convictions are?

Not only are we free to do this, we're arguably obligated to do it. The verdicts of the war crimes trials at Nuremberg, following World War II, made unambiguously clear that each individual is responsible for his/her own beliefs and behaviour, and that this isn't a responsibility that can be delegated to governments, religious leaders, bureaucrats or any other 'official authority.' I'm highly skeptical the judges would have made an exception for self-appointed internet 'misinformation' censors, had any existed at the time.

The truth is that, compared with previous eras, we can consider ourselves most fortunate: research has never been easier to do, factually reliable information never easier to obtain, and we can even claim far more conformity of opinion on a wide range of basic things than has ever existed before—justifiable and beneficial conformity, due to verifiable knowledge having become more extensive and widely shared than a fragmented ancient world could have imagined possible. The very last thing our era needs is would-be social engineers and other authoritarians filtering reality for us, on the internet or elsewhere, and arrogating to themselves the responsibility for sorting our experience into hierarchies of reliability, something we've always done for ourselves—competently enough, we might add, to develop the internet in the first place.

In short, Dear censors: please stop trying to help us! The unsought 'protection from turbulence' you offer looks more like a protection racket from here.