OPINION:
Carole Cadwalladr is my new hero. If you're at all interested in the
effect of fake news on pretty much everything I cannot recommend too
highly her TED talk.
Cadwalladr is not a polished public speaker, she's a journalist, but
her talk, 'Facebook's role in Brexit - and the threat to democracy' is
mesmerising. In 13 minutes she relays how she rumbled a trail of
disinformation dressed as truth, that led straight to Cambridge Analytica's harvesting of more than 80 million Facebook users' data. You can feel the unease creeping up your spine as you watch.
"Vote Leave unleashed a fire hose of disinformation," she says.
Facebook ads were "total lies".
The culprits (the Vote Leave movement)
only had to identify a tiny sliver of fence-sitters (the pursuadables)
and then go to town on them with fake news ads that no-one else would
ever see, because your Facebook news feed is targeted to you and no-one
else.
AP
Kiwis
are susceptible to the scare tactics of conservative groups in a
Brexit-style misinformation campaign, ahead of the cannabis referendum,
writes Alison Mau.
In this truly disturbing unmasking of Brexit, Cadwalladr uses the phrase "once in a generation vote".
Yes, that phrase will sound familiar to you. It's the phrase we in New Zealand are hearing every time the 2020 referendum
on the legalisation of cannabis is mentioned. And it's not too much of a
stretch to imagine a portion of New Zealand's 2.9 million Facebook
users could be the next target of a disinformation campaign ahead of
that vote.
We've made progress towards a more compassionate system here with the passing of the Misuse of Drugs (Medicinal Cannabis) Amendment Bill in December last year,
which allows some people to use cannabis products as medicine. Now we
have to get our heads around the concept of legalisation of
cannabis, and whether it will solve the awful societal effects of the
war on drugs, or whether it will leave us in an even worse place.
That's a big choice. It needs to be a properly informed choice. And
some who are trying to help Kiwis make that informed choice are
genuinely worried about the possibility of a fake-news campaign that
could leave us being anything but informed.
I'm not pulling your leg here.The situation has become quite urgent
thanks to the lack, yet, of any guidelines from the Government to give
us a steer on what a legalised system could look like.
This has created
an information vacuum that's being filled by arch-conservative groups
like Family First who fiddle the data, and shock-jock journalism.
In 2018 the New Zealand Drug Foundation surveyed 1000 Kiwis and found
49 per cent favoured legalisation, 48 per cent did not, and only one
percent was undecided. A year on, the same survey showed a big change.
Not a swing to the "yes" or "no" camp, but towards the unsure. Now 38
per cent of us believe a regulated legalised system is a better way, 45
per cent do not and a much larger 15 per cent say they do not know.
Those latest figures tell the foundation's executive director, Ross
Bell, that "a lot of people with legitimate concerns - like parents -
don't have a home yet" in the debate. These are some of the people who
wonder whether legalisation of cannabis will lead to more young people
trying it, just like the conservative groups tell them it will.
CAMERON BURNELL/STUFF
Ross Bell, NZ Drug Foundation
director, says a lot of Kiwis are reluctant to vote 'yes' on the referendum because they don't know what the result could mean.
I don't mean to be mean, but anyone who parents with their eyes open
will already know that 80 per cent of New Zealanders try cannabis before
they turn 25. There's no evidence internationally that more young
people will access the drug in a legalised system, and anyway, there are
few who have not (or will not) already, even with the drug's current
illegal status.
Despite that, these and other Kiwis are potentially susceptible to the
scare tactics of the conservative groups who are also fighting against
things like legalised abortion and the right to end of life choice.
"A lot of them do not find their natural home with the "no" vote, but
they're not yet ready to commit to "yes" because they don't know what
that means," Bell told me.
He thinks Kiwis' comfort levels will come right with more information.
Also joining the "yes" side, is an increasing number of Maori, who
recognise the war on drugs has caused disproportionate harm to iwi,
whanau and hapu and is therefore racist.
A rally at Auckland's Town Hall on Monday laid out that part of the issue in no uncertain terms, with the #HealthNotHandcuffs
collective bringing experts from the United States, including author
Asha Bandele, and Deborah Small, executive director of drug policy
advocate organisation Break the Chains, to speak alongside Helen Clark.
Bell says there will be some "undecideds" who won't like seeing the
debate framed by race, but the effects on Maori can't be ignored.
Neither can the risks of a flood of targeted disinformation from
who-knows-where. Carole Cadwalladr's TED talk is a short and
easy-to-understand masterclass in how difficult it is to tell what is
real and what is not. It shows Brexit and Trump were "intimately
entwined.. the same people, the same companies, same data techniques..
the same use of hate and fear."
We have just one year to make sure that nightmare does not repeat itself here, in our own once-in-a-generation vote.
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