Securitizing Freedom: Disinformation Control and the Threat to Liberal Values

• In Event: Violence, Freedom, and Law

Abstract

This paper analyzes the rhetoric of security that governments, civil society, and media in democracies around the world use to attack traditional liberal values. Although it is hardly surprising that authoritarian states would attack freedoms of speech, association, privacy, and fair trial using trumped up national security concerns, many democracies now do so. Justified primarily by assertions that certain ideas and even words constitute “disinformation” or “hate,” these efforts aim to curtail longstanding liberal freedoms. Democracies such as the U.S., Canada, Germany, and Brazil now routinely equate speech and nonviolent action with national security threats, terrorism, and physical violence.

My paper, an early stage of a book project, has several purposes. First, I outline the scope of disinformation control/censorship in democratic states and international organizations such as the European Union. In these venues, government-backed disinformation control campaigns simultaneously censor dissident viewpoints and propagandize official narratives. Second, I map linkages within the disinformation control/censorship network. The network spans governmental and quasi-governmental civil society organizations, often crossing borders. Third, I analyze tactics used to justify sharp new limits on rights. Chief among them are vague and ungrounded assertions that longstanding liberal freedoms suddenly pose threats to national security and individual safety. Finally, I hypothesize about the motives of those attacking liberalism in the name of defending democracy. In particular, it is notable that many disinformation control/censorhip campaigns gained momentum after electoral successes for candidates and policies denounced by authorities as “populist.”

Author

• Clifford Bob, Duquesne University