Dear Editor,

With the Government’s declaration of war against misinformation that is constantly spewed on social media, one could say that it made its own grave to lie in.

In fact, I go as far as to say to never debate politics on social media, for it is only a game of who throws the most insults.

Take, for instance, the third-country national fiasco. Dr Horace Chang had to combat the misinformation running around about the deal between the US and Jamaica by “setting some records straight”. But he and the prime minister missed the opportunity to set the record straight had they gone public with the deal from earlier.

Average Jamaicans were totally unaware of this deal.

How does the Government expect to combat misinformation when they frequently use the Data Protection Act to obstruct critical information being made public?

Why does the Government think it can simply try to hide things under the rug and expect, in an age of social media, AI deepfakes, and the like, to not have the citizens expect the worst from them, especially when both political parties have a history of corruption and scandals?

This is not a defence for misinformation, as misinformation only extends the issue of low trust in society.

If the Government wishes to combat misinformation, it must first be transparent with the citizens to which each elected members owes his/her seat.

It is already telling on the Government that the people would think that a random TikToker or YouTuber would be a more reliable source of information on what the Government of Jamaica is doing than the Government itself.

Marcus White

whitemarc918@gmail.com