The problem with fighting fake news

I think the best course to follow is for the Ministry of Democratic Institutions to actually have confidence in democratic institutions. That’s to say, it should trust the citizenry to discern truth without the help of government.

Democratic Institutions Minister Karina Gould said 'the objective is to have civil society organizations in Canada who can help provide some of the civic awareness and education to evaluate news, digital media, etcetera, the information coming to Canadians, so they can make their informed choice of how they ingest this information, and how they share it or not.'The Hill Times photograph by Andrew Meade

Opinion

BY GERRY NICHOLLS

February 11, 2019

OAKVILLE, ONT.—Whenever I see references to the federal government’s Ministry of Democratic Institutions, I always get a slight case of the willies. It’s probably just me, but to my mind the department’s name—“Ministry of Democratic Institutions”—has an Orwellian vibe. And so natur...

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