Not-so-fake news

While it is certainly a true fact, as all facts are, that there is a very real danger of fake news laws being abused to further suppress the ability of domestic Thais to accurately understand Thai affairs — whether Thai history, society or politics — there is a more salient danger. This greater danger is rightly suggested when the editor writes of the army chief that his “claims are not backed by verifiable facts”.

As seen in the wholly unsubstantiated tweets and other deplorably vacuous sound bites by the current US president, there is a deceitful presumption that merely labelling an inconvenient fact as “fake news” in fact rebuts it. It does no such thing, a fact acknowledged by every honest person, and in Thai culture a truth central to the teaching of the Buddha, who consistently emphasised that all opinion must be based on right understanding that is backed by facts and reason. If you want to rebut an inconvenient claim that might well be a fact, merely calling it “fake” counts for nothing. Unless verifiable evidence and sound reasoning is presented, the empty shout of “fake, fake, fake news” is in fact a prima facie admission that the news is very likely true.

As the Chinese example also shows, only a fool would implicitly trust a government to state facts, or to state all the facts needed for an informed opinion of solid worth, something that Thai law has traditionally denied Thai citizens on various issues claimed to be of national importance, where there is indeed much fakery in need of exposure by healthy critical discussion under the protection of the often-offensive free speech that is a necessary condition for any democracy.