IEA Editorial Director Kristian Niemietz has written for The Daily Telegraph arguing that calls to clamp down on social media speech amid rioting in the UK will lead to greater government censorship.

Kristian wrote:

“Speaking as a seasoned Twitter keyboard warrior, my impression is that ‘misinformation’ and ‘fake news’ are largely demand-driven. It is not that people fall for sophisticated hoaxes, which only a professional fact-checker could identify as such. Rather, social media users fall for very obvious hoaxes when they appear to confirm their prejudices. They fall for them because they want to fall for them.

“I am not saying that left-wing progressives are more prone to spreading, or consuming, misinformation than people elsewhere on the political spectrum. But since British political Twitter is a predominantly left-wing, progressive platform, in absolute terms, most misinformation comes from the progressive Left.  

“It is not really ‘misinformation’ as such that bothers Twitter’s newfound progressive critics. It is the fact that they are no longer quite as hegemonic on that platform as they once were. It is the competition they don’t like, and as incumbents often do, they are now calling for regulation to protect their market-dominant position.”

Read Kristian’s full piece here.