The article explores the connection between authoritarian leaders and their propensity to twist the truth, often employing a playbook that includes attacking truth-tellers and undermining scientific discourse. The spread of disinformation, exemplified by the conspiracy surrounding the 2020 election, illustrates extreme harm, culminating in events like the Capitol insurrection. The piece emphasizes that misinformation poses tangible dangers to public healthâciting the death of a child from measles due to vaccine misinformation. Amid accusations of bias in fact-checking, the article advocates for addressing misinformation without censorship, stressing the importance of factual accuracy.
Decades of psychological research suggest that authoritarian leaders and their admirers consistently share one thing in common: they twist the truth.
To manipulate the truth, authoritarian leaders cultivate those who either willingly or inadvertently defend the authoritarian agenda by undermining research on disinformation and misinformation.
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