Someone once said to me that they no longer read newspapers, because whenever they read an article about an area they were an expert in, the article was invariably 90% bollocks. Key facts would be missing, or misunderstood; known charlatans would have been interviewed and treated as holy; old or misleading conclusions would have been made. And if, this guy reasoned, that was true for the stories he knew about, it must be true for everything in the paper. Why, then, should he bother reading it?
Government is having the same problem, but it is made worse. It’s not that experts grumble into their beer about obscure nuances of law, as they’ve done that for 1000s of years. It’s not even just that experts can point out the fallacies of proposed legislation on the internet – and reach a large and active audience – although this is increasingly true. It’s that the internet specifically allows everyone to become an expert in whatever field. What we have is not Emergent Democracy, as many would have it, but Emergent Transparency. It’s not enough for a minister to say “Trust Me” anymore, because 5 minutes with Google usually finds every single lie, or spin, or misplaced understanding. To return to my non-newspaper buying friend, it’s not just that 90% of the statements about things I know about are wrong, but that I now know 90% of everything you make statements about. The internet hive mind is fact-checking as you go.

ben hammersley on why voters are staying away from the voting booths in droves. with the end of practical obscurity, a new polis needs to emerge.

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