European Digital Media Observatory - What is Disinformation?

 

Disinformation, Cyber Security or Cyber Ethics?

 

The European Legislation on cyber security and disinformation is terrifying. An unelected body of so-called experts on science, data and information will be deciding what is true or untrue. Who read 1984? On the website of the EU you can read:

The Commission is tackling the spread of online disinformation and misinformation to ensure the protection of European values and democratic systems.

EDMO, short for European Digital Media Observatory, is an independent observatory bringing together fact-checkers and academic researchers with expertise in the field of online disinformation, social media platforms, journalist driven media and media literacy practitioners. My question is; who are these people? I googled but could not yet find a list of people and or the companies they work for. In previous columns I asked this question: ‘who checks the fact checkers?’ several times. The risk of cyber security can however be alleviated by using cyber ethics as information and to learn more about people’s motivation to act unethically online. Cyber risks for our industry are real. A while ago an oil terminal became inoperable due to a cyber-attack. This leads to another question: why would people attack other people using the cyber space? What motivates the European Union to ‘decide’ for us what is true or false, by telling us which information is misinformation? If you, for example believe that forever chemicals are to be banned or that an electric car is not as sustainable as proclaimed, someone in EDMO, could determine this as misinformation because 25000 Lobbyists roam the area around the Wetstraat in Brussels where the European Parliament is seated. Could vested interest interfere with the reality or surreality of (dis) information? Questions like these are valid, because apparently those who share ‘disinformation’ could be fined or jailed. But, as demonstrated earlier, information can’t be destroyed, nor censored, nor ignored, because information is always a part of the energy-matter-information trinity needed for functionality. You see, information is equivalent to energy. Suppression of information means suppressing of energy, which renders the European Union dysfunctional due to an energy shortage to do work. Control of information is physically impossible. What it will cause is entropy (disorder) because a living system, in this case the European Society will not be able to express ideas or thoughts any longer that oppose the main stream consensus on truth. This will inevitably lead to less creativity, less freedom of expression and speech, because if you dare to speak your heart and this is determined as disinformation, you may be penalized. In such a world life is no longer free. Just look back at history. The dark ages were caused by enforcement of religion. Anyone who tried to express his or her thoughts that resisted the Church dictates risked to be burnt at the stake, causing 500 years of lack of progress. Control of the few of the many can’t work because it never worked. Be aware, because when ideas become forbidden, life ceases to function. This is no misinformation but a physical and biological truth.