“There’s a danger in the internet and social media. The notion that information is enough, that more and more information is enough, that you don’t have to think, you just have to get more information–gets very dangerous.”

–Edward de Bono, Maltese commentator

 

Just a guess, but you aren’t glued to the television or XM radio to follow Donald Trump’s trial. You might tune in briefly, just for an update. After all, this is the first time a former president has gone on trial for a felony charge. Whether you agree or disagree with the process, it’s historic … and somewhat tawdry.

I have XM radio in my car. I intentionally put the Fox News  Channel adjacent to CNN’s channel. When I go back and forth, it’s as though they’re covering two different trials. If you’ve got XM, try it and you’ll see what I mean. I suspect the truth is somewhere in between.

Even the three major networks have veered from unbiased news reporting. (Where have you gone, Walter Cronkite?) The Associated Press is considered the most “fair and balanced” source of news. When I researched this blog, I discovered there’s actually an Associated Press Television News channel. Who knew? (They also offer a free, daily email news feed, The Morning Wire.)

Print news sources are just as biased. Are you drawn to the New York Times or the Washington Times? Do you prefer the Washington Post or the Wall Street Journal?

Like a moth drawn to light, we are drawn to news sources that reaffirm our basic beliefs, our preconceived notions. That’s a phenomenon called “confirmation bias.” Start reading an article that flies in the face of your opinion and it’s likely you’ll never finish it. Sometimes, we simply don’t want to be confused by the facts.

Sadly, the worst source for reliable information and news is social media. Contrary to face-to-face, there’s no voice inflection, tone, facial expression, or any other human characteristic that would betray the reliability of what one is saying or writing. Yet, that is where many people, especially young people, go to as their source of news.

One thing most of us can agree on is the danger of the TikTok app. It’s owned by the Chinese technology company ByteDance and is controlled by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

I recently listened to Tim Ferriss’s podcast interview of Matt Pottinger, a polymath who’s an expert on China. He’s a visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution and chairman of the China Program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. He’s also a former U.S. Deputy National Security Advisor. Here are a few of his sobering points:

• Chinese President Xi Jinping wants to use TikTok to win the global ideological war.

• TikTok has been used by the CCP to discover journalists’ sources and punish them. In other words, they’ve weaponized TikTok.

• TikTok’s algorithm sends content to users based on their preferences, but deletes anything injurious to China’s reputation, and often preferentially posts anti-American and anti-Israel feeds. This means its the very antithesis of free speech.

• TikTok, the platform most often used by Americans under thirty as their source for news and information, is controlled by a totalitarian government that wants to dominate the U.S.

Finally, Pottinger asks this important question: Can we imagine the U.S. government allowing the main source of news for its citizens living in the 1930s and ’40s to be controlled by the Nazis? Of course not! In fact, a law was passed during Roosevelt’s administration to prohibit such a possibility; yet, here we are.

Finally, the good news: In late April, both houses of Congress passed a TikTok bill that was promptly signed by President Biden. Contrary to a common misconception, the bill doesn’t ban TikTok but simply requires that ByteDance divest their ownership of it, thereby removing it from Chinese control. If that doesn’t happen within one year, the platform will be banned in our country.

While this bill makes sense, we don’t want our government to be the final arbiter of what we can access in the way of information. Put the wrong people with ulterior motives in power, and imagine what they could do. Again, just look at the Chinese government.

We live in a world that bends truths once thought to be self-evident to fit today’s cultural norms. Documents like the U.S. Constitution, the Bible, and even the history of this great country are no longer accepted as they were originally written.

We all need to be more thoughtful about, and careful of, our sources of information and, in turn, make sure our children and grandchildren do the same. If those sources inform how we vote, how we feel about our country, and how we feel about each other, nothing could be more important.