Sever Voinescu: The Hysteria of Disinformation

A few days ago, the president of the CNA, Mr. Valentin Jucan, gave an interview to the Hotnews.ro website. In a dramatic tone, the senior official spoke about the danger of disinformation and, at one point, declared: “From my point of view, the 2028 elections can already be considered compromised. Look at what is happening in society! Starting with this almost banal subject of the ‘black ambulance.’ The level of disinformation, the themes we keep seeing… The Romanian state must organize itself! It must strengthen the institutions it has. Immediately! If we want to have a society that can withstand these times, if we want to continue to have the democracy we aspired to when joining the European Union, if we want to remain part of the European Union. From my point of view, this is where we are.”

I understand the head of the CNA. Exasperated by the fact that the state is not doing what he believes needs to be done in this regard, Mr. Jucan has come to address the issue with an obvious obsessive neurosis. I, on the contrary, believe that we will get nowhere if we turn the issue of disinformation—or, more precisely, false information, since that is what we are talking about—into hysteria. The first thing that must be stated emphatically is that not everything we dislike, that does not suit us, or that contradicts our options or values is fake news or disinformation. I believe we should look at the issue more lucidly.

First, we should understand what we have and cannot change. We have the state we have; we cannot make another one, and we have the society we have; we cannot make another one. Obviously, there is room for improvement, but we will never be able to overcome our “genes.” Likewise, we must understand what we can change. I believe we can change the paradigm of the social conflict in which we find ourselves.

We have a confrontation scenario which, if you do not see it from both sides, you understand nothing. Specifically, we are divided into larger or smaller social groups that accuse one another of disinformation. Let us think only of the terrible conflict between defenders and critics of the COVID vaccine—a typical case of informational civil war. Each camp was convinced that the other was lying, manipulating, and spreading disinformation. Official discourse was on the side of the vaccine’s defenders, but with the change in political power in America, the country that produced the vaccines, official discourse is beginning to change, as can be seen. There you have it, yesterday’s critics will say, we were right! I am not choosing this example at random, because the COVID pandemic of 2020-2021 was a global event with an enormous societal impact. In Romania, for example, the rift that opened then between the “pro-vaxxers” and the “anti-vaxxers” continued to grow, while the struggle between the two opposing “narratives,” with its entire procession of arguments, became more comprehensive after the pandemic. The camps of that time remained largely the same along the fault lines of other disputes as well, such as pro- or anti-Ukraine, pro- or anti-Brussels, pro- or anti-Trump, etc. I do not think I am far wrong in saying that the map of political options in Romania is also being organized largely along the “front line” from the time of the pandemic.

You will surely say that there is only one truth and that it would be a mistake to say that both sides are right. I will immediately agree. However, our problem is not to discover the truth and impose it (that is impossible and, in any case, each side is convinced of its own truth and of the need to impose it on the other), but to see how we can restore the two camps, between which distrust has already solidified into hostility, to a condition of solidarity and loyal cooperation. Democracy itself does not aim at truth, but at an arrangement of peaceful social life, the premise of widespread prosperity. Therefore, I have serious reservations about proposals that envisage state intervention through the suppression of certain sources, platforms, or even arrests and imprisonment. In passing, let me say that I am frightened to discover how many Romanians believe that arrests and prison solve Romania’s problems, naturally demanding the arrest of those they dislike. Every Romanian has their own personal list of compatriots they want arrested because “that’s only right.” Repression never helps eradicate a mass phenomenon. Repression is useful only in individual cases, when one person or very few people commit a criminal act—but hoping that state repression will solve the problem of false information, especially in the Internet age, is as stupid as a house.

In the statement mentioned above, Mr. Jucan says that the 2028 elections are already compromised. Well, I cannot agree with that. First of all, it is not clear to me what compromised elections mean. The scenario for any free election is this: an electoral campaign in which competitors say whatever they believe will bring them votes, then the popular exercise at the ballot box, followed by the counting of the votes and the announcement of the result. If Mr. Jucan expects us to have an informational field in which only proven and honestly presented truths circulate, then he believes he is in Heaven. There is no democracy without propaganda. The great difference between a democracy and a dictatorship, from this point of view, is that in democracies there are several propagandas, while in a dictatorship there is only one propaganda. And propaganda is, by definition, an exaggeration that often goes beyond the limit of lying. The only democratic way to combat propaganda is counterpropaganda. There is only one way in which the state can stop what it would consider disinformation: to decide from the outset what may be said and what may not. You will admit, I hope, that such a thing is unacceptable. You cannot carry out the supreme exercise of democracy—that is, free elections—with an electoral campaign in which competitors speak according to a list of what they are and are not allowed to say.

My opinion is that a free confrontation of information is necessary, and it is not at all people’s fault that they come to believe in something that is, in fact, harmful to them. I believe those to blame are the people proposing beneficial solutions but who are not as convincing as their opponents. Speaking strictly about the 2028 electoral campaign, it is nobody’s fault that the so-called sovereigntists are so numerous and so “caught up” in their propaganda. It is the fault of those making politics on the other side that they are mediocre, plainly incompetent, and unconvincing. It is their fault that they ask for our vote “for the lesser evil,” because that is all they can deliver, while the others ask for our vote for “the greater good.”

Ah, and one more thing: nobody is throwing us out of the EU. Let us stay calm about that too.

https://www.dilema.ro/tilc-show/isteria-dezinformarii