Pope John XXIII, 1963 (PA Images)
Lying, half-truths, “misspeaking”, or obfuscation are now political skills, much as was rhetoric in ancient Greece. Honesty and frankness – and there are many honest politicians – come as a welcome surprise. Many blame governments’ general disposition to avoid the truth and cover up how they got us into our current mess. They have certainly contributed to a mushrooming belief in conspiracies.
The implausible has becomes plausible. A public accustomed to being hoodwinked and manipulated has become prone to mistrusting the trustworthy, as trust in those with power evaporates and the line between truth and falsehood is deliberately blurred. Groups form networks around misinformation shared on the internet. It is not all to governments’ disadvantage. People confused are easier to control.
Rushing to Judgment: Examining Government Mandated Content Moderation
Twitter suspends former President Trump s account (Marco Verch Professional Photographer, https://flic.kr/p/2ktcdYw; CC BY 2.0, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/).
On March 15, 2019, Brenton Tarrant logged on to 8chan and posted a message on a far-right thread to spread the word that he would be livestreaming an attack on “invaders.” Around 20 minutes later, Tarrant entered a mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand, with an automatic weapon and a GoPro camera. Tarrant livestreamed on Facebook as he embarked on a killing spree resulting in the murder of 51 persons. Facebook removed the livestream 17 minutes later, after it had been viewed by more than 4,000 people. In the next 24 hours, Facebook removed the video 1.5 million times, of which 1.2 million were blocked at upload. Tarrant’s preparation and announcement made it clear that the attack’s horrific shock value was tailor-made for social media.
Kazakhstan abolishes death penalty
President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev has spared convicts sentenced to death in the authoritarian central Asian nation. The former Soviet state has ratified a UN treaty against capital punishment.
Kazakhstani President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev speaking to his Nur Otan party
President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev has signed a decree abolishing the death penalty in Kazakhstan, according to a statement released by his office on Saturday.
The new law makes permanent the existing moratorium on state executions in place since 2003, introduced by then-President Nursultan Nazarbayev.
In September 2020, Tokayev spoke before the UN General Assembly saying that the decision was driven to fulfill a fundamental right to life and human dignity. Last year, the oil-rich country joined the UN s International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, a multilateral treaty included in the International Bill of Human Rights.
Vote-counting procedures can tame even wild democracies
Getty / The Denver Post, Medianews Group.
The United States needed five long weeks to count all the ballots cast in the recent election. Elsewhere, it happens more quickly; in Switzerland, for instance, many votes are not even counted – they are weighed.
This content was published on December 20, 2020 - 11:00
December 20, 2020 - 11:00
Bruno Kaufmann
In the end, the American people spoke out resoundingly for change at the White House, with the highest voter turnout in the history of the country. But the recent fiercely contested weeks were a challenge for the oldest modern democracy in the world.