CMV: The information war against misinformation cannot be won without the left adopting more aggressive tactics

Perception is reality. We're in a perilous situation here in the West, in large part because of the rampant misinformation online and the degeneration of truth, sponsored by Russia and enacted by the right. As democracies, all citizens have agency in deciding the direction where their countries go. And if you can create parallel realities for those citizens, and convince them that they should vote for politicians that are obedient to you, you can manipulate an entire country into doing your bidding. This is an incredibly serious problem. The US has fallen, and there are festering and growing pockets of this in most European countries.

They say that a lie can circle around the world before the truth can get out the door. Something like that. Having followed online discussions relatively closely for some years, I've been shocked at how these movements use language so deceptively. Words seem to be tools to gain power instead of tools to articulate and express truth. Blatant hypocrisy, gaslighting and projection everywhere you look. Principles and red lines changing the instant someone from their side violates them. People like this can't be reasoned with. They don't even believe in words. Their side can do no wrong, but the moment someone on the left stumbles or even appears to, they raise hell about it in outrage.

Take for example how quickly certain political figures can claim to stand for "law and order" while simultaneously dismissing legal proceedings against their allies. Or how "free speech" becomes a rallying cry only when it benefits certain viewpoints, but is quickly abandoned when opposing voices speak up. The double standards are blatant and intentional.

As a quick caveat I will say that of course, the left isn't completely innocent of this either. It's more complex than just good versus evil. Any person can use language deceitfully like this. But there is a clear and studied difference in how habitual this is for the modern right. They've turned lying into an art. And because they're not bound by conscience or principles, they can afford to keep their messaging uniform and easy to spread, simple for people to digest. That's for the people who are knowingly lying. There are certainly vast amounts of people who have just been duped.

So the fight is for the hearts and minds of those uncommitted, undecided, and for those who harbor a seed of doubt and can be turned with the appropriate appeal to emotion or logic. And the right is winning. The left has been complacent in thinking that the right will respect the rule of law and play by the rules. They are not, and the left is hesitant to go down to their level, to the point of paralysis. And to make things worse, centrism and "both sides" rhetoric is also disgustingly effective and so hard to debunk because it feels so intuitive. So a meaningful amount of people are just apathetic because they think both sides are just as bad and they don't want to take part.

Historically, we've seen how propaganda campaigns can successfully reshape entire societies' worldviews. From the rise of fascism in the 1930s to the Cold War information battles, those who controlled the narrative with the most persistence and reach often prevailed - not those with the most accurate information.

Now, to my actual view. I have become cynical. It does not seem to me like this information war can be won. Being able to lie and cheat with impunity is too big of an advantage. So on one hand, I feel like the left should stoop down and invest in movements and independent media massively and aggressively. Embrace their independent media as much and more than the right has embraced theirs. Fund people to spend all day just posting online like they do in the troll farms. Maybe there's a way to do this without discarding facts. Maybe there's a chance.

If there is not, and the lies can't be drowned out by a relentless barrage of honest messaging, then I fear that it will come to violence, in many places. If one side never backs down peacefully, and they just take more and more power, a time will come when they have to be fought by force. I hope that doesn't happen.

Some might argue that adopting more aggressive tactics means becoming the very thing we're fighting against. That by matching misinformation with misinformation, we lose the moral high ground. But I would counter that there's a difference between aggressive messaging and dishonest messaging - and that distinction matters.

Here are a few ways I could see that I would change and/or add nuance to my view:

• Give me a credible "both sides" argument. The bar is quite high for this. There are studies upon studies on how the right both spreads and consumes more misinformation and my own experience confirms this for me too. I am also aware of many of the various ways in which the left has allowed it to come to this. Though those arguments irk me too, usually boiling down to the left having to be the adults in the room and that the right can't be held accountable. Because they refuse to be accountable.
• Demonstrate to me that, by addressing the economic conditions that have made people susceptible to this kind of rhetoric, they can be made less desperate for power and more interested in truth. Something along those lines. Education could also be a big factor. Wealth inequality is a massive root cause for all this. Many European countries have defeated their far right parties in recent elections and could have time to address this. For the US it seems too late for this, unless something miraculous happens in the midterms.
• Show me that I am missing some other crucial detail that reveals the root cause or main issue is something else. Naturally I wouldn't know what that is. But I wouldn't be here if I didn't suspect there's more to the story than just what I'm aware of.
• Provide evidence that technological solutions could effectively combat misinformation at scale. Perhaps AI detection tools, better platform moderation, or decentralized verification systems could turn the tide without requiring the left to abandon its principles.
• Convince me that my timeline is too pessimistic. Maybe what we're seeing is a pendulum swing rather than a one-way descent, and there are historical precedents for societies pulling back from similar information crises.
• Demonstrate that grassroots media literacy education could be effective enough to inoculate significant portions of the population against misinformation tactics, making the aggressive counter-offensive unnecessary.

This was a somewhat emotionally motivated post. I want to see more clearly, fill in the gaps in my knowledge and be better informed, with the eventual goal of participating locally, and doing my part.

EDIT: Going to bed now. I appreciate all the replies, I will read the rest tomorrow evening and hope to give out some deltas.

If you're considering leaving a comment, please read the post fully. I tried to be as precise in my words as I could, but I can see there's room to improve. If I make future posts here, I'll aim to reduce ambiguity further and define my terms. And just to clarify, I did not suggest limiting people's speech or "forcing the truth" onto people. I thought that was an odd thing to interpret from the post. I simply think that the "right/far right" has been more effective in getting their messages out in large part because they spread them without caring to verify them. My concern is that the "left" can't win that fight just by being louder, but that they have to adopt some dishonest tactics too. And to reiterate one more time, I would not be condoning this, and it's not an outcome that I desire.