There are a lot of people who believe that the government should be the sole arbiter of what is considered to be disinformation, malinformation, and misinformation. While, this does make sense on a certain level, it has to be recognized that when that government is not transparent to us, and has its own agenda which is often hidden, along with being motivated to see that its desires and thereby its narrative is considered to be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, even when it quite clearly is not, then this represents a real problem for the people, for they are being propagandize to, and when the people essentially have not the full right to free expression, or free thinking, but are obligated are encouraged to toe the governmental line, then the people are not only not free, but they have become part and parcel of the lies that the government sells as the truth.
While we would like to think that our government has our best interests in mind, we only need to look at the current makeup of our government to recognize that this cannot conceivably be true, because those that are at the highest echelons of elected officials, as well as the power behind those officials, are made up of individuals that represent not only the upper echelons of financial power, but typically have connections with very powerful institutions and personages, as well, that combined make for a government that doesn’t seem to fairly represent the people, from top to bottom.
So then, whenever any government has its own agenda that is not consistent with fairness, equality under the law, or structured for the benefit of the people, then that government isn’t true to its good purpose for it is a basic requirement that the people have the right to express themselves as free thinking people, in addition to the responsible need to have independent people and institutions that will hold the government accountable to the people, so that at the end of the day, the determination of what is or is not true, is held not in the hands of the government, but rather is in the hands of free thinking people to fairly decide for themselves.
While we may well be disappointed anytime that we see certain people fall hook, line, and sinker for that which we know is false or a deception, our responsibility to those who are too credulous for their own good is to point them in the right direction, and the choice of whether they subsequently decide to walk in that direction is their own. We live in societies in which we are going to be susceptible to being lied to, cheated, and deceived, of which this is especially effective when it comes from authority figures or representatives, such as the government, that we want to believe has our best interests in mind and that would never lie to us. Yet, governments do lie to us, they do cheat us, and they do deceive us – thereby signifying it is our responsibility as a people to keep those that are in positions of power, accountable to us as a people, which is best done in an atmosphere in which we are permitted to search for the truth, and to testify to that truth, for the overall betterment of the people.