s world leaders convene for the 76th United Nations General Assembly, there is much to discuss; issues like the pressing need to rebuild sustainably, to take better care of our planet and its people, and to revitalize our collective actions. The return of national borders and the drop in international trade caused by COVID-19 has brought globalization to a brutal halt, after decades of uninterrupted development. As the convener of most global discussions, the United Nations fights for its own relevance. We are at a turning point in policymaking, faced with the powerful headwinds of opinions, facts, and convenience in dictating our future.
It may be tempting to shut the doors and keep quiet; but that would just continue the trend of the past 30 years. With the steady rise of global and regional trade and the explosion of technological innovation in the ’90s—not least the internet—public debates have shifted gradually away from classic, ideological politics and toward concrete, often very technical issues. The prevailing notion was that such issues would be more competently handled by experts and shared with an educated audience. There is no question that the extraordinary progress of European integration, both in substance and in geographical scope, was driven by the strong grip of a technocratic machine of experts in Brussels.
But is it realistic today for the key topics of public debate to be left only for experts to answer?
Big global challenges have rightly become a matter of public debate. Take climate change, for example—there has not been a single climate change summit in the past 20 years that has not been subject to growing intense public scrutiny. The same is true with the pandemic. The fact that COVID-19 and the response to it has been the number one public debate item since the beginning of 2020 has made it a topic of public scrutiny that cannot be left only to a few. Experts can no longer say, “This is too complicated for you to understand.” People want to know, and they want to intervene.
Technological growth and the expansion of social media has enabled, in turn, everyone to become a media. We have moved from the technocratic era to that of digital democracy where people expect not only to be able to express their opinions freely, but also for these opinions to be considered.
The challenge lies in deciphering these opinions. What is the difference between facts, claims, interpretation, opinions, and misinformation? For most people, these apparently distinct categories of information blur into each other. To paraphrase the political theorist Hannah Arendt, opinions are as true to a private person as “factual truths.” Even people who are trained to scrutinize information and seek out objective truths may come to different conclusions—a phenomenon that’s by no means uncommon in science, as well.
With so much information freely and easily available online, how do ordinary citizens seek it out and critically evaluate it? How many read articles reporting “new research shows …” and then go on to check whether the report links to sources, then follow the links and read the sources? The farther one delves into scientific and academic papers, the more technical they will find them and the less likely they are to reach definitive, unqualified conclusions.
For legislators and public policymakers, the challenge is acute. They have a responsibility to seek out, examine, and evaluate the facts and collect public and private opinions to inform their decision-making. And they must be mindful of public opinion, not least because they risk being pilloried and removed from office if they deviate too far from what their constituents think and want.
Everyone has a role to play in helping establish objective fact-checking mechanisms—from governments, multilateral bodies, and news organizations to technology companies and companies like ours. To do our part, we strive for transparency as we transform our business to deliver a smoke-free future, inviting policymakers, the scientific community, and NGOs to review and verify our scientific findings and progress.
Today more than ever, we need to be able to collaborate and take decisive action against the many challenges our world is facing. There need to be new ways—quicker ways—to have the right level of technical and scientific consensus around certain topics, particularly as the world progresses rapidly thanks to the intensity and scope of scientific progress and technological innovation. Too often the incentive is for legislators and public policymakers to “play it safe.” Without robust processes in place to ensure that the facts are understood and that the necessary policy changes are objectively debated, it is natural that some people will just want to hit pause and say: “You know what, let’s stay with what we know.”
Lack of perspective, relying on the status quo for convenience and ideology, and misinformation will continue to hold us back unless we address them head-on. We need to fast-track truth, facts, and science. This is our shared responsibility and the least we can do if we want to drive positive change for the world.
a global affairs media network
Misinformation and Conventionalism: The Gatekeepers Against Progress
Image via Adobe Stock.
September 20, 2021
As the convener of most global discussions, the United Nations fights for its own relevance. We are at a turning point in policymaking, faced with the powerful headwinds of opinions, facts, and convenience in dictating our future, says PMI's Gregoire Verdeaux.
A
s world leaders convene for the 76th United Nations General Assembly, there is much to discuss; issues like the pressing need to rebuild sustainably, to take better care of our planet and its people, and to revitalize our collective actions. The return of national borders and the drop in international trade caused by COVID-19 has brought globalization to a brutal halt, after decades of uninterrupted development. As the convener of most global discussions, the United Nations fights for its own relevance. We are at a turning point in policymaking, faced with the powerful headwinds of opinions, facts, and convenience in dictating our future.
It may be tempting to shut the doors and keep quiet; but that would just continue the trend of the past 30 years. With the steady rise of global and regional trade and the explosion of technological innovation in the ’90s—not least the internet—public debates have shifted gradually away from classic, ideological politics and toward concrete, often very technical issues. The prevailing notion was that such issues would be more competently handled by experts and shared with an educated audience. There is no question that the extraordinary progress of European integration, both in substance and in geographical scope, was driven by the strong grip of a technocratic machine of experts in Brussels.
But is it realistic today for the key topics of public debate to be left only for experts to answer?
Big global challenges have rightly become a matter of public debate. Take climate change, for example—there has not been a single climate change summit in the past 20 years that has not been subject to growing intense public scrutiny. The same is true with the pandemic. The fact that COVID-19 and the response to it has been the number one public debate item since the beginning of 2020 has made it a topic of public scrutiny that cannot be left only to a few. Experts can no longer say, “This is too complicated for you to understand.” People want to know, and they want to intervene.
Technological growth and the expansion of social media has enabled, in turn, everyone to become a media. We have moved from the technocratic era to that of digital democracy where people expect not only to be able to express their opinions freely, but also for these opinions to be considered.
The challenge lies in deciphering these opinions. What is the difference between facts, claims, interpretation, opinions, and misinformation? For most people, these apparently distinct categories of information blur into each other. To paraphrase the political theorist Hannah Arendt, opinions are as true to a private person as “factual truths.” Even people who are trained to scrutinize information and seek out objective truths may come to different conclusions—a phenomenon that’s by no means uncommon in science, as well.
With so much information freely and easily available online, how do ordinary citizens seek it out and critically evaluate it? How many read articles reporting “new research shows …” and then go on to check whether the report links to sources, then follow the links and read the sources? The farther one delves into scientific and academic papers, the more technical they will find them and the less likely they are to reach definitive, unqualified conclusions.
For legislators and public policymakers, the challenge is acute. They have a responsibility to seek out, examine, and evaluate the facts and collect public and private opinions to inform their decision-making. And they must be mindful of public opinion, not least because they risk being pilloried and removed from office if they deviate too far from what their constituents think and want.
Everyone has a role to play in helping establish objective fact-checking mechanisms—from governments, multilateral bodies, and news organizations to technology companies and companies like ours. To do our part, we strive for transparency as we transform our business to deliver a smoke-free future, inviting policymakers, the scientific community, and NGOs to review and verify our scientific findings and progress.
Today more than ever, we need to be able to collaborate and take decisive action against the many challenges our world is facing. There need to be new ways—quicker ways—to have the right level of technical and scientific consensus around certain topics, particularly as the world progresses rapidly thanks to the intensity and scope of scientific progress and technological innovation. Too often the incentive is for legislators and public policymakers to “play it safe.” Without robust processes in place to ensure that the facts are understood and that the necessary policy changes are objectively debated, it is natural that some people will just want to hit pause and say: “You know what, let’s stay with what we know.”
Lack of perspective, relying on the status quo for convenience and ideology, and misinformation will continue to hold us back unless we address them head-on. We need to fast-track truth, facts, and science. This is our shared responsibility and the least we can do if we want to drive positive change for the world.
