I understand what you are saying, but this is also historically how authoritarian regimes are enshrined, by persuading people in misleading or corrupted ways.
I feel your attitude is a bit defeatist. I think there are mechanisms that can work to protect from deception. For example, transparency of funds, or origin of the message. It's similar to asking for candy bar makers to disclose the true ingredient list and calorie count. It's not a Pandora's box to require this transparency from all politically inclined parties.
And I'm sure other mechanisms could be thought off.
To me, putting in place mechanisms like that and valuing them above even your current opinion of who to vote for matters as much as free speech. It's in the same category. Free speech is another mechanism that even if you don't like what's being said, you should value the right to free speech above it. I think mechanisms to prevent deception are just as important to value even above your personal choice, if you care to keep democracy free.
The scale at which information can be manipulated now, it's easy to be consuming more ideas that are coming from outside your country than inside it without even knowing that all the posts, blogs, tiktoks, tweets, news, memes, and ads you are seeing are not representative of what people in your country are thinking or saying in any proportion, but instead coming from outside your country, orchestrated by rich or organized groups, trying to make you think this is the current discourse, until it becomes the current discourse.
I feel your attitude is a bit defeatist. I think there are mechanisms that can work to protect from deception. For example, transparency of funds, or origin of the message. It's similar to asking for candy bar makers to disclose the true ingredient list and calorie count. It's not a Pandora's box to require this transparency from all politically inclined parties.
And I'm sure other mechanisms could be thought off.
To me, putting in place mechanisms like that and valuing them above even your current opinion of who to vote for matters as much as free speech. It's in the same category. Free speech is another mechanism that even if you don't like what's being said, you should value the right to free speech above it. I think mechanisms to prevent deception are just as important to value even above your personal choice, if you care to keep democracy free.
The scale at which information can be manipulated now, it's easy to be consuming more ideas that are coming from outside your country than inside it without even knowing that all the posts, blogs, tiktoks, tweets, news, memes, and ads you are seeing are not representative of what people in your country are thinking or saying in any proportion, but instead coming from outside your country, orchestrated by rich or organized groups, trying to make you think this is the current discourse, until it becomes the current discourse.