The Media Can't Stop Spreading Misinformation about Florida

Their latest target is a bill about childhood education

Obviously I have written extensively about COVID and COVID related policies, but with the broader goal of undermining the veneer of infallibility that the media and institutions are allowed to maintain.

In general, I strongly dislike the use of the word “misinformation” when discussing substantive issues because it’s so often used as a shorthand to describe “information that may be true but is inconvenient.” In many ways, the debate over “misinformation” can be broken down into power structures.

The most likely spreaders of “misinformation” are those with power; the government and the media. While an individual with a Twitter account may make claims that are not objectively true, there is an enormous difference between that and the official social media account of The White House openly disseminating misleading guidance and pseudoscience.

Because the government and media outlets are supposed to be viewed as trustworthy, reliable sources of information, they are the sources that are most likely to be guilty of sharing “misinformation.”

This has been evident given their dramatic failures with regards to COVID policy and the media’s endless praise of lockdown countries that they could frame as opposing Trump’s “anti-science” rhetoric.

Allowing them to continue spreading misinformation unchecked is what has lead to the disturbing statements from the CDC director implying that masks will be brought back indefinitely:

Allowing them to maintain policies based on inaccuracies will have tremendous negative side effects going forward. Revolving school masking, vaccine passports or other interventions could become permanent fixtures of daily life directly due to actual “misinformation.”

Debunking government and media misrepresentations of reality was the actual basis of my book, “Unmasked” — and we’re seeing this play out again in Florida.

The latest controversy revolves around Florida’s “Parental Rights in Education” Bill that was recently passed by the state legislature.

The text of the bill is easily readable online and is remarkably short and easy to understand, yet despite this convenience and short length, too many have learned about the bill from media reports that have mislabeled and misstated what the bill actually says.

The section that has generated the most controversy reads as follows:

prohibiting classroom discussion about sexual orientation or gender identity in certain grade levels or in a specified manner

This text has led to a firestorm of media coverage and predictable outrage and purposefully misleading tweets from the President and the official White House Twitter account:

It’s led to student protests with the Press Secretary openly lying about the bill and the motivations behind it.

Media reports have been almost entirely negative and they immediately adopted the opponent’s preferred framing and language to sway the public’s perception of the bill.

And as you might have noticed from the Disney headline, the incessant media outrage has required corporations to make sweeping, dramatic statements to placate the mob of activists who consistently believe the media’s purposeful misinformation.

In the same disturbing trend as allowing the pro-mask lobby to frame The Science™ as settled, which encourages permanent masking, we can determine that allowing the media and politicians to rename the bill in their own interest will lead to extensive, long lasting damage.

It’s important at this point out in detail what the bill actually says about this issue:

Classroom instruction by school personnel or third parties on sexual orientation or gender identity may not occur in kindergarten through grade 3 or in a manner that is not age appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards.

Kindergarten through grade 3. That’s what this is all about. That’s it.

The bill is designed to limit the ability of teachers or outside educators to instruct kids aged ~ 5 - 8 on sexual orientation or gender identity.

It clearly says nothing about a student’s or educator’s freedom to say the word “gay.”

It’s designed to limit organized instruction of sexual orientation or gender identity to young children.

Instead of framing the content of the bill accurately and reporting the important distinctions, the media has run with “Don’t Say Gay,” because it aligns with their ideological goals. (read more)