TRUTH MATTERS: IT CERTAINLY DOES AND THE RTE CAMPAIGN NEEDS TO OPEN UP

RTE’s Truth Matters campaign is praiseworthy. It wants to place RTE News as truthful and firmly opposed to misinformation, lies and nonsense. However, its basis is not at all clear. It could be the case that the existing service is being offered as more reliably true than its competitors or it could be the case that the existing service is changing in order to make it more reliably true. Clarification is needed.

At least two areas of concern should be openly confronted.

i) The isolation of news as the vehicle for truth.

ii) The relation between news reporting and truth.

i) RTE is by no means alone in fighting for conventional journalism against its increasingly successful competitors. The clash is characterised as serious, professional journalism versus the chaos and silliness of social media. Unfortunately there is a cover-up at the core of this. The narrative suggests that the likes of conspiracy theories sprang up fully formed with social media. They didn’t. They were propagated by journalism before the arrival of social media; Andrew Wakefield’s scam was created by conventional journalism and media. Indeed, it can be argued that uncritical or even supportive coverage of baseless nonsense groomed a belief in dangerous, anti-democratic guff. (This is expanded upon here: https://colummccaffery.wordpress.com/2021/03/09/from-reiki-to-conspiracy-journalism-and-the-grooming-of-a-threat-to-democracy/ )

It would be far more credible if the campaign admitted RTE’s unwitting role in creating the problem and highlighted the extent of the change now envisaged.

Worse, by isolating truth as a feature of news, RTE implies permission for the rest of their schedule to continue as before, i.e. there is no sign of corporate disapproval never mind a ban on uncritical, supportive treatment of anti-vax, anti-science, “alternative” or psychic nonsense in programmes lighter than news and current affairs. Incidentally, it may be the case that grooming in credulousness was largely carried out in popular light programmes. It is certainly the case that alternative – evidence free – therapies and treatments, and psychic beliefs continue to receive supportive coverage. It is downright odd to commit the news service to truth while encouraging other programmes to undermine that commitment.

ii) It is certainly news and certainly true when the utterances of a prominent figure are accurately reported. When those utterances are nonsense/untrue or in support of nonsense, an impartial report remains true but facilitates the spread of nonsense. This is not to say that that impartiality with its honourable, effective tradition should be abandoned; it is merely to state what journalists know full well, that an impartial report can be incompatible with telling the truth.

Put another way and in the context of the RTE Truth Matters initiative, impartiality must now explicitly involve exposition of lies, cover-ups, scams, conspiracy fantasies and nonsense. Some journalists will argue that impartiality is their fundamental, immutable value. They have a point. At its best it prevents the intrusion of personal views into reporting but at its worst it provides a cloak of respectability for sharing bogus information. Bluntly, if Truth Matters is to be taken seriously, RTE needs to spell out what if anything has changed in news reporting.

FROM REIKI TO CONSPIRACY: JOURNALISM AND THE GROOMING OF A THREAT TO DEMOCRACY

It’s commonly believed that conspiracy theories sprang fully formed from nothing and that it happened in recent years. That’s not the case. They are the outcome of years of development, fostered by media professionals. These days many journalists scramble to present their profession as a force firmly on the side of sweet reason, standing against destructive nonsense but that’s a present necessity and until relatively recently they were – with some exceptions – promoting its opposite.

Timescale is important. While a grasp of longer history is always valuable, in this instance the relevant timescale is mere decades, certainly within the careers of many working today. In this context comparing the arrival of social media to Gutenberg is glib irrelevance and mention of 19^th and early 20^th century anti-vax is a diversion.

Those journalists who today struggle to rescue and restore their profession are to be praised. However, three things need to be said. Firstly, their credibility would be enhanced by talking about both the profession’s role in creating the problem in the first place and the reasons why they now have had to make a fundamental change. Secondly, such openness would increase the likelihood of their acceptance as an institution of democracy. Thirdly, revealing a dodgy past in relation to nonsense would serve as a warning, because when they provided publicity for small time chancers, they effectively groomed large numbers of people to think conspiracy theories make sense.

Here in brief is what happened. In recent decades journalists and other prominent citizens fostered a belief in “alternative” therapies and theories, the likes of Reiki, reflexology, numerology, homeopathy etc. These alternatives had just one thing in common: there was not a jot of supporting evidence. Gradually a small army of chancers aided by journalists mobilised a mass of people, people who at root saw no difference between evidence and anecdote, who thought that all opinions were equal and should not be challenged. (I’m entitled to my opinion.)

For many it was harmless fun but lack of evidence turned darkly serious as media spread Andrew Wakefield’s lies re autism. In Ireland coverage of anti-HPV immunisation scares stopped only when a brave and dying young woman spoke out, and RTE coverage of 5-G nonsense was stopped only when believers began to attack communication masts.*

Of course it’s not too late for journalism to recover, to side with ordinary reason against obvious nonsense, to become a dependable source for thinking, participative citizens but they should be assertive and acknowledge their part in creating nothing less than a threat to democracy.

Credulous people are routine material for comedy. When their numbers grew so large that they became a lucrative media audience and a constituency whose support could win an election or a referendum, their comedic value reduced. Democracy needs its fourth estate not to patronise and exploit the credulous but to provide a service for the participative citizen.

* This may be of interest: https://colummccaffery.wordpress.com/2020/04/26/rtes-decision-to-out-the-covid-5-g-myth-turns-a-spotlight-towards-professional-journalism/

Woo Féin may not be all that funny

The recent trawl through SF’s embarrassing material revealed some strange though non-violent stuff but rather than making fun of their support for the likes of 5G conspiracy, anti-flouridation etc. it might be better to look at the constituency whose support they are trying to attract.

The range spanning those who believe in one or more “alternatives” (e.g. reflexology, reiki, aromatherapy, homeopathy etc.), through anti-vax to the wilder extremes of conspiracies, contains an enormous number of potential voters. However, it has to be emphasised that a willingness to believe without the need for ordinary or conventional evidence may be as far as homogeneity goes. Nevertheless these are votes that are there to be won. As with any party or candidate with an informed eye to the main chance, SF can see this.

It is not, anyhow, merely a matter of numbers. There are two considerations: firstly, the credulity of the voters, and secondly the “anti-establishment” component which SF would expect to inveigle.

The Brexit campaign demonstrated all too well that an effective way of mobilising the support of gullible people is to identify what they say is important and tell them that a vote for a party or a cause will resolve their concerns. It is systematic and effective lying. It is also old and frankly routine in Ireland because of the Irish pressure/delivery political system in which every candidate is expected to identify concerns with a view to telling voters that they represent the voters’ best chance of ensuring delivery. It is hardly surprising then that an Irish party or candidate would work to get the votes of the huge number of people who are prepared to believe without evidence.

Leaving aside those who are credulous towards a mere one or two alternative practices but who otherwise resort to reason, there is an easy slide along the spectrum populated by anti-vaxers, covid deniers, chem-trail aficionados, 5-G’ers and even more extreme conspiracy fantasists. They like to present themselves as “anti-establishment”, not in the older, progressive sense of the term but in the recent, newly defined sense, rejecting science, education and the educated elite, established systems of government etc.

Their support and votes are there to be won by anyone marching under the banner of “anti-establishment”. It is vanishingly rare for an activist with roots in anti-establishment to talk openly about how their cherished term has been expropriated by their opponents, making “anti-establishment” the banner of Bannon and Trump, Boris, Brexit and Cummings, and the whole raft of free market ideologues whose stated objective is the destruction of the progressive structural gains of the past century, the very gains on which further left progress depends.

RTE; Don’t drift back to traditions. Face the questions raised.

The appearance of RTE presenters and managers in flagrant defiance of Covid-19 obligations and all notions of common sense has prompted a familiar round of RTE bashing. At its core that’s a round in a struggle to privatise broadcasting or at least a major part of its funding.

The pity of it is that an opportunity is being wasted. Covid 19 together with Trump’s attempted coup have forced basic questions to the surface, questions about RTE’s coverage of public controversy. Rather than apologies, ducking and diving, and attempts to humiliate, there is a need to confront flaws in time-honoured practices and regulation.

However, something very blunt needs to be said at the outset. In present circumstances anyone in any walk of life who would attend a retirement party would have to be marked out as foolish or grossly out of touch with current events. That senior broadcasters and managers should be so marked raises not only doubts about them but also a fervent hope that competence and common sense across staff generally are not open to question.

1. The first Covid related challenge to old ways came when RTE was forced to break with impartial reporting in order to state openly that the 5-G scares were unhttps://colummccaffery.wordpress.com/2020/04/26/rtes-decision-to-out-the-covid-5-g-myth-turns-a-spotlight-towards-professional-journalism/true. (A more complete account appears here: ) Up to this point RTE did not editorialise on public controversy but dutifully reported all. The next departure came when RTE joined many media outlets in saying explicitly that Donald Trump’s election claims were without evidence.

There are two possible courses now. The most likely is that the present contentious period will be allowed slide by and the national broadcaster will return to strict impartiality as per its legal obligations. The other course is to face up to a challenge: that extraordinary events have demonstrated a need to decide for truth and to consider changes to the Broadcasting Acts.

The role of mainstream media generally and of RTE in spreading unfounded nonsense from anti-vax through alternative therapies and miracle cures to homeopathy cannot be forgotten. Being blunt once more, Andrew Wakefield was well served by media reporting and to too great an extent he still is. In short, now is the time to oblige public service media to decide for truth or at the very least to highlight the fact that many claims have no evidential basis. Many indeed are scams that while entertaining should not be facilitated.

2. The second Covid related challenge to old ways came with the daft RTE retirement party. Critics of the RTE staff who flouted social distancing practice make the point that the presenters must now recuse themselves from media discussion of matters relating to covid 19.

It’s a fair point but if it were generalised, it has the potential utterly to change broadcast coverage of political controversy, e.g. a broadcaster on an extraordinary salary would be required to recuse themselves from media discussion of matters relating to income.

Think of the officious distancing from membership of a political party. It would be most unusual that a card-carrying member of a political party would present a public controversy and on the odd occasion it has happened their membership was highlighted, yet a presenter with an extraordinary salary can present a controversy which relates to incomes and attention is not drawn to their interest.

This is not the time to pillory the foolish or campaign for privatisation. It is time for fundamental thought – time to take a red pen to the law controlling broadcast coverage of public controversy.

Can journalism change or was that just a once-off Trump story

As Joe Biden inched towards 270, the institution that was journalism seemed at last to shift preceptively. Long used to news stories covered impartially, they now called a spade a spade or a lie a lie. Heretofore, they didn’t take sides; they simply reported.

It wasn’t as sudden as it might seem. Trump made it widespread and inevitable; his lies made impartial journalism look silly, extreme and irresponsible to the thinking people on whom journalism depends for its commercial survival. It remains to be seen if journalism will treat this explicit marking of lies as a once-off, stand-alone, Trump story and resume the impartial reporting of lies generally; or if it marks a change in journalism and its public service. Moreover, it must be added that impartiality is not something that can be abandoned lightly. It has honourable and sensible roots in history but the world changed and for decades now liars have known how to exploit impartial reporting by way of its rules and guidelines.

It may be that the earliest abandonment of impartial reporting was in Ireland when RTE decided explicitly to label the 5G myth a nonsense. The details are here: https://colummccaffery.wordpress.com/2020/04/26/rtes-decision-to-out-the-covid-5-g-myth-turns-a-spotlight-towards-professional-journalism/

It would be of enormous help in today’s world if journalism made an effort to save and redefine itself. Instead of trying to salvage an honoured place for news stories in this age, leaders in journalism should acknowledge its role in creating the problem. They provided years of respectful coverage of “alternative” nonsense, anti-vax, anti-science; in general they peddled a perverse grasp of anti-establishment. A great deal more is required now. If journalism is to change, it will be hard and the “news” conservatives will wallow and resist.

“WOULD YOU STOP SPREADING NONSENSE”; THE DEFENCE OF ORDINARY DISCUSSION

Here’s a tweet posted by Gemma O’Doherty in April 2020:

@gemmaod1

Psychopath, Bill Gates, whose vaccines have destroyed the lives of millions of children, is embedded in the Irish Deep State. If you consent to #LockdownIreland much longer, you won’t be allowed to leave your home without receiving a syringe of toxins. #COVID2019

Reading slowly, it becomes apparent that it is a very dense message. It’s carefully crafted to push a lot of buttons. There are two important groups who unfortunately will not give it the attention it deserves. Firstly, thinking people are likely to dismiss it out of hand as raving lunacy. Secondly, leftists wedded to the idea that fascism is the ever present threat which it is their mission to oppose will shoehorn it into that simplistic world view. It is of course raving lunacy and fascism continues to lurk in filthy corners but that should not prevent taking such messages seriously.

There is a constituency waiting for that message. They believe its parts, and the whole is familiar and credible to them. They will be encouraged that smart people oppose them and that socialists might think them nazis. Bluntly, the people at whom this message was aimed regard socialism, other thoughtful approaches, education, expertise, science etc. as establishment and they are profoundly anti-establishment.

The temptation is to view them sympathetically as the left-behind, the people whose hopes and ambitions vanished while a management, professional, university-educated elite settled into good jobs. The new elite offered to those left behind little more than a haughty explanation of a changed world to which they must submit – even though they have no future in that world. There’s a twofold problem with this approach. Not all of the left-behind are credulous anti-establishment. Moreover, many who are certainly not left behind are also credulous and anti-establishment (CAE).

If CAE is not explained by social class, there are two other approaches. One comes from psychology; it’s popular and has explanatory force. The idea is to look at what kind of personal satisfaction is gained from being CAE. A number of answers emerge but a popular one is that being CAE makes a person feel special, part of an insider group. There is little point in presenting here an overview of what psychologists have discovered about the satisfactions of being CAE as personal satisfactions reveal nothing about the social or political significance of what has become a political constituency.

A better approach might be to liberate CAE from its current manifestation, its views on present concerns, and look at it instead as a movement which has developed over years. It is difficult to decide on a starting point. There is a temptation to go back to the early days of mass democracy because democrats then were worried about franchise enlargement to include those unable or unwilling to reason and likely to fall victim to manipulators, demagogues.

 

A second temptation arrives back at the same period but relates to a quite different story. This is the temptation to find the roots of CAE in esoteric or spiritual movements which, though they claim descent from ancient times and practices, seem to blossom in the hey day of theosophy, the likes of Madam Blavatsky and, let’s call it, a romantic mysticism.

It’s possible, however, to locate a more recent starting point. Just a few decades ago the Mind, Body, Spirit (MBS) movement developed. This saw significant numbers of people turning to beliefs, theories, cures, therapies for which there was no conventional explanation or evidence. Indeed the lack of evidence seems to be the main attraction and basic line of defence. As with today’s 5-G conspiracists, their obdurate stronghold is the rejection of all conventional evidence.

Sections of bookshops were set up to present this arrant nonsense and to serve the market for it. Conventional media reported it as if it were true. Health insurers paid for bogus therapies which their medical directors knew provided no medical benefit. (They still do.) State schools opened their doors to evening courses which their management knew or should have known had no educational benefit. Educational awards bodies sacrificed their credibility to recognise bogus disciplines.

What appeared in the 90s was a body of people large enough to support a thriving market. What these people had in common was a willingness to believe in powers, systems and cures for which there is absolutely no evidence or it might have to be said in order to humour them, for which there is no conventional evidence. The list is staggeringly long but includes reflexology, reiki, homeopathy, numerology, angel therapy, magnet therapy and on it goes … A comprehensive list is not essential to the argument here.

 

The point can be summarised thus. A believer in homeopathy should have no difficulty accepting that 5-G caused the Coronavirus for two reasons. Firstly, the evidential basis for both is equally absent. Secondly, adherents of both are actively promoting lies during this pandemic.

It has to be said that not all believers subscribe to the full range of beliefs. Many a believer in, say, Reiki or the power of orgonite might reject the notion of the deep state, the Illuminati and the Lizard People along with 5-G myths but that doesn’t change the fact that they believe something for which there is no evidence or, oops, no conventional evidence. These limited believers (LB) therefore actively contribute to the acceptance or normalisation of beliefs which have no foundation.

It’s important not to exaggerate the influence of light-hearted, entertaining interests in MBS but it has to be said that it just isn’t like an interest in science fiction or dragons, which participants know perfectly well doesn’t make truth claims. Belief in forces beyond discussion, however, does nothing to promote the ordinary conversations which are basic to society. This then is the LBs’ small contribution; they’ve helped normalise a refusal to engage in ordinary debate. Bluntly, they’ve helped make it acceptable to treat seriously views for which there is no justification.

There is now worldwide, accepted in local schools, bookshops, libraries, crossing socio-economic divides from poor to rich, from little education to highly educated, from menial employment to prosperous professionals, a huge constituency waiting to be addressed. They are the CAE. To gain the support of a fraction of them would make all the difference to a political candidate, movement or party.

The existence of this constituency is not a secret. They are real people; they have votes. They are there to be addressed but not in any conventional sense, for they are not amenable to argument. Apart from the possibility of a leader who shares their beliefs, they are there to hear lies. In truth it’s not unlike a lot of political campaigning in which a charlatan identifies people’s issues and concerns, tells them they share their concerns and asks for their vote or offers to lead them. It’s simple political marketing.

The tweet at the top of this piece is an all-out play for their support by pushing a lot of buttons at once but also in Ireland there has been a softer approach, a mere signalling to them that they are not being dismissed, that at least some politicians have what the CAE call an “open mind”, that they might be prepared to do their “own research”, i.e. believe something beyond what the scientific “establishment” treats as evidence. This softly, softly approach is in evidence when SF representatives and uncharacteristically one of the leaders of the Social Democrats show themselves open to the possibility that there really is a 5-G conspiracy.

Journalism and the political establishment have belatedly woken up to the dangers of lies, conspiracy theories and mass delusions. It was recognised as a problem to be tackled firstly after the Cambridge Analytica scandal illustrated that the GAE could be mobilised and secondly, when coping with the Covid-19 pandemic was being undermined by widespread beliefs. It wasn’t simply that communication masts were vandalised and workers threatened by activists opposed to radio waves but people groomed on anti-vax, anti-government plots were prepared to believe that there is no virus, that it is all a grand plot by the “establishment” to control the “people”.

What is to be done? Assuming it is not too late, democrats must resist but democrats have not been forthright against un-reason. Journalism is at last seeing the danger, talking about fact-checking and discussing their role in support of the public sphere but they are not being entirely frank and there is no sign of change. They do not acknowledge the part they’ve played in popularising, normalising crazy beliefs and practices. Suffice it to mention Andrew Wakefield and the platform later given to those opposed to HPV vaccination. Mention too should be made of impartial reporting of nonsense or even conferring normality by way of presenting it as balance to conventional science. The covid epidemic has led RTE, the Irish state broadcaster, to say explicitly that the 5-G myth is untrue. However, there is no intention to say that of anything else – no matter how bizarre.

If journalism is not prepared to stand against unreason, that leaves just ordinary participant citizens; there’s no one else. They are thus required to question not merely in social media but in everyday life, to be prepared to ask a family member to stop pushing nonsense. Moreover, they are to be asked to speak up in this way not only when their relative, friend, neighbour or acquaintance is coming on strong with fantastic and dangerous conspiracy theories but when they talk of a recreational interest in the likes of reiki, chakras, energy channels etc. because that’s where the LB support lies. That’s a lot of – perhaps far too much – activism and courage to ask of ordinary citizens but then the context is that pompous guff despises their ordinary discussions and needs to be chased away.

RTE’s DECISION TO “OUT” THE COVID 5-G MYTH TURNS A SPOTLIGHT TOWARDS PROFESSIONAL JOURNALISM

The Covid-19 public health emergency has pushed Irish broadcasters into a significant, perhaps fundamental, change in reporting. The system which underpins coverage of political controversy is dictated by the Broadcasting Acts. In essence the requirement is be fair to what might be termed stakeholders and to provide balance. In other words, editorialising is not permitted. That was the stable, well-understood practice for decades.

No matter how unproven, unscientific or wacky a view, if it was held by someone notable or could be used as counterbalance to create controversy, it would be presented without comment.

The idea that a view could be marked out as suspect, wrong or even dangerous nonsense was foreign to the practice of reporting. The 5-G conspiracy theory in a time of crisis for public health changed that.

Now, for years 5-G has been a staple among believers in alternative therapies/medicine, a state or world government or “big pharma” trying to dominate, poison or exploit “the people”, through vaccines, fluoridated water, chemicals sprayed from aircraft (chem trails) and a whole range of other strange fantasies.

5-G refers to a fifth generation of mobile communication operating at a higher frequency than earlier systems. The higher frequency reduces range and therefore to achieve coverage many more sites with aerials are required.

Electro-magnetic radiation (i.e. radio signals) or non-ionising radiation has long been confused with ionising or “atomic” radiation and this confusion has caused unnecessary fears.* Because some who have stoked these fears are qualified in science, it is implausible that they do not understand; it is more likely that their purpose is exploitation. In other words, 5-G is the latest in a long line of scare stories but it took a truly bizarre turn when its adherents linked it to the coronavirus outbreak. They tried to have people believe that the appearance of the virus in Wuhan coincided with and was caused by the switch-on of a 5-G system. The story spread among the credulous and scared them to the extent that they began to attack communication towers and the technical staff who attended to them. In the middle of a pandemic this was getting out of hand and something had to be done. In communication terms the public had to be informed that this was pure bunkum.

The national broadcaster, RTE, acted. The 5-G conspiracy theory was explicitly labelled as untrue. Three points need to be made at this stage. Firstly, RTE acted correctly. Secondly, a complainant might be successful in saying that RTE was wrong to editorialise and in breach of a statutory obligation. In the circumstances it is unlikely that anyone will complain. Thirdly and crucially, the decision to say that the 5-G conspiracy was untrue could not have been based on new data. To be blunt about this, if the 5-G conspiracy was untrue in April 2020, it was no less untrue in, say, April 2019.

This amounts to a troubling realisation: that a health emergency forced a national broadcaster to tell the truth. It is of course entirely possible that the causal link was not so direct: that until the emergency the broadcaster did not know the truth. In other words, that controversy during the emergency prompted or forced the broadcaster to check the veracity of the years-old 5-G myth. There is no need to pursue truth any further down this philosophical rabbit hole because a much wider problem for political communication has been opened to examination.

The conventional view among journalists and broadcasters now is that social media are the font of all nonsense and that public discourse requires dependable, professional journalists who will seek out, interrogate and tell the truth. Given that it took an emergency on the scale of a pandemic for news from just one source in Ireland to break with convention, find and tell the truth, it is clearly not the case that social media have a monopoly on spreading nonsense.

If the 5-G lie were were an isolated issue, nothing further need be said but that’s not the case. Journalism and broadcasting has a long history of neutral reporting of lies. Anti-vax is a case in point. In the late 90s Dr. Andrew Wakefield published a bogus study linking MMR vaccine and autism. Eventually he was forced to retract and he was struck off but not before mass media reported it extensively. It would have been reasonable to expect that his disgrace would signal the end of such nonsense but it merely signalled the beginning of a movement which has been damaging public health vaccination programmes for years. Serious illnesses like measles, once thought eradicated, have begun to reappear and cause deaths. In Ireland the proposal to vaccinate young people against HPV was resisted. This anti-vax movement gained ground when mass media reported utterly unproven claims of vaccine damage as if they were true. It left a suspicion that journalists and broadcasters were unable to distinguish between causation and correlation. The public health vaccination programme was saved when a dying young woman whom the vaccine would likely have protected, spoke out. Nevertheless, anti-vax remains and thrives. Even the disgraced Andrew Wakefield has been re-cycled as a media spokesperson.

Here’s the point. Support for wicked harmful nonsense did not originate in social media or even with the internet. Much of it predates social media. The public sphere was poisoned by professional reporting.

Broadcasters may choose to hide behind the legal obligations to avoid editorialising but they could – if competent in the most basic science – have questioned, investigated, found the truth and at least avoided reporting harmful nonsense.

The decision finally to label the 5-G scare as untrue merely highlights the extent of the problem. The truth claims of homeopathy are at least as daft and its practitioners have been claiming to cure or help to cure covid-19. There is no indication that RTE or anyone else will label homeopathy untrue and that observation can be extended to a whole range “miracle” cancer cures and much else.

Yes, the Irish Broadcasting Acts may need amendment but what is at issue is more fundamental. It goes to the core of what citizens might expect of their broadcasters and particularly their national broadcaster. It is entirely reasonable that Broadcasters be required to have both the interest and the technical ability to identify arrant nonsense. It is out of the question that myths, fantasies and general raiméis be passively reported as if they were true.

_________________________________________

* Radiation is said to be ionising when it has sufficient power to crate ions, i.e. to shift electrons out of an atom. That power is related to the type of radiation and there is no evidence that electromagnetic radiation (radio signals) has this effect. The suspicion that it might is related to a paper published by The International Agency for Research Into Cancer, a part of the World Health Organisation. The paper refers to a particular cancer, to extensive use of a mobile phone held to the ear, and is clear that it is not making a finding of fact. (The paper can be accessed here: https://www.iarc.fr/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/pr208_E.pdf) Moreover, it was published in 2011 when all mobile phones were held to the ear. It might be worth adding that ionising radiation is not bad; modern medicine in the form of X-rays etc. relies on it.

On-line struggle: the fraught position of site admins and moderators

We are quite used to the idea that newspaper editors bear responsibility for public discourse. With the rise and reach of social media a similar responsibility has fallen to ordinary people who never expected it – people with no background in journalism or political communication. These are people who started or took over on-line sites that they never imagined would be hot spots for political struggle. They now find they are moderators, trying to square freedom of expression with organised attempts to dominate their sites. Typically these sites are local to an area or an interest and the interest is frequently nostalgia; memory sites, old pictures etc. are sitting ducks for reasonably organised intrusion.

The pattern seems to be fairly consistent. It usually begins with what might be termed a “Michael Collins appreciation society”. These activists extol Michael Collins and use this to deride today’s political leaders often as “traitors” to “the people”. The SF and/or IRA activists arrive a short time later, at which point the Michael Collins activists go quiet. Finally, the 5-G activists arrive and they tend to encompass anti-vax and other “alternative” views. Racists are prominent too, blaming change on foreigners, refugees, etc. but they don’t appear to be acting in an organised way.

Sometimes the intrusive activists take over, rendering the admins powerless. Other times an admin sees the problem in time and takes decisive action but at the cost of considerable pressure and abuse in the form of bogus defence of freedom of expression. Occasionally, ordinary people give up and leave the site to the activists. It can then rumble on picking up small numbers of adherents from the wider web, people who would know nothing of the previous process.

It is a great deal to ask of a site admin/moderator that they resist organised activists but their position is made worse by the failure of ordinary people to support them. Yes, it’s hard to speak up and much easier to leave them to it, but this is a struggle and remaining quiet is taking sides. The intrusive activists rely on most people lacking the nerve to tackle them.

OK, who is on for antagonising a large number of Irish citizens?

The Workers Party has come out with a proposal effectively to make the MMR vaccine compulsory. They say that parents should be required to show proof of vaccination before their children can access a range of public institutions. Essentially they’re talking about schools.* Because of this, there may be a constitutional hurdle to be faced but if we are serious about health care, it is is the way to go. 

What’s the problem? Well, the Workers Party have just poked the anti-vax movement and the gates of hell may be opened because behind the antivaxers there is a huge constituency of nonsense – some of it dangerous. This ranges from supporters of the use of MMS who believe that bleach is a curative**, through libertarians and conspiracy nuts, on to the relatively benign world of healers and hoaxers – some receiving payment from medical insurers*** – homeopathists, reflexolologists, angel botherers, mediums etc. until you get to thousands like the woman I met recently who would prefer that her lovely old dog endure the pain of his arthritis on doses of turmeric rather than give him “toxic” anti-inflammatories “pushed” by Big-Pharma.

 

What the lot of them share is a rejection of science, reason and the establishment generally.

Let’s take the spotlight off the Workers Party and talk in general terms, It’s just about possible that a political party could support compulsory MMR vaccination without losing the entire woo/anti-establishment constituency. If, however, they took up the same position on HPV,† things could get difficult.

In terms of priority, what a party should look at and soon is MMS. Making, using, selling and advertising it in Ireland is illegal and there have been convictions.†† However, advocating its use is legal.††† Yes, there’s a question of freedom of expression but no one supports complete abandon; we have regulation re slander and libel, incitement etc. Restricting speech in favour of submitting a child to a bleach enema should be posssible, even popular.

Well, now that our party of reason has opened up the can of worms, will it have the courage to be consistent and tackle the other wrigglies? Here’s a list of actions falling short of outright bans: stopping the use of health insurance money to pay chancers, ensuring that homeopathic “remedies” carry a big label saying that they contain no active ingredient,‡ preventing chancers from “teaching” in school buildings under the guise of adult education, telling professional bodies who enjoy state recognition to ensure that members are not engaged in or supportive of bogus therapies/preparations, asking colleges and universities to investigate what was lacking in their courses that they produce graduates who believe in, practice or promote foolishness … That list could become very long.

An interesting political question is this: Are the Workers Party stopping at the MMR question and are they on their own or are there other parties willing to oppose chancers, liars, fakers and worse? The risk is the loss of the support of the thousands who now believe utter nonsense and reject the establishment. A second risk might be an exodus of party members or a split. The possible gain might be support among thinking people. Saying nothing, hiding away, hoping not to be asked to take a side as this enormous social gulf widens, that’s an option of course; it’s essentially a decision to move in the direction of irrelevance.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

*http://workersparty.ie/calls-for-mandatory-scheme-of-vaccinations-for-school-going-children-to-stem-whooping-cough-measles-outbreaks/

** https://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/health-family/outlandish-therapies-exploit-families-of-autistic-children-1.3076647

*** I tried to tackle this in 2010: https://colummccaffery.wordpress.com/2010/09/13/alternative-health-insurance-well-pay-for-anything/

† https://www.hse.ie/eng/health/immunisation/pubinfo/schoolprog/hpv/hpv-vaccination-programme/

†† https://www.rte.ie/news/2018/0215/941028-bleach/

††† https://www.rte.ie/news/player/2015/0514/20780390-report-on-a-cult-which-believes-that-industrial-strength-bleach-can-cure-autism/

‡ https://colummccaffery.wordpress.com/2011/01/05/homeopathy-making-choice-meaningful/