What is Truth?
Murthy v Missouri
March 23, 2024. Vol. 2, Issue 13.
Welcome to Infophilia, a weekly letter about the human love of information and connections. This is one of the places where I’m pioneering a positive psychology of information, an avant-garde research project. I am shining a light to deepen our understanding for living well. If this is your first time, I am glad to have you here. Check out the Archive, starting with Infophilia and the Dopamine Connection (Sept. 15, 2023). I promised a followup on disinformation (Censorship Industrial Complex) and here it is! Welcome back everybody else! As always, thanks for reading.
There is a financial pull toward research-free stories. Writing 1,200 words of jokes about a Trump tweet costs less than sending a reporter undercover into a Mexican maquiladora. - Matt Taibbi
Most of us understand that in today's media landscape fact-checking, verification, transparency, and trust are much needed. American journalist Taibbi’s observation is right on as financially incendiary opinion journalism continues to grow! I explore an important case about freedom of speech, First Amendment rights Murthy v Missouri (formerly Missouri v Biden) - oral argument was heard on Monday March 18, 2024 - to underscore the growing importance of these principles amid the disinformation, both human and AI driven, that is ever present in our globally interconnected digital world.
What do you do when reputed journalists report that the US government and other democracies are colluding with tech platforms and using sophisticated AI to label people on social media, censor, and discredit factual information? Well, I am playing with ‘TruthLit / TruthiLit’ as a way of reflecting on my struggles discerning truth in the fast evolving environment. Information war is a reality that goes beyond the global competition among different political economies, commodification of our personal information, and the concentration of private power.