When Steve Reed, the now ex-communities secretary, unveiled his social cohesion ‘action plan’ earlier this year, he promised to publish an ‘evidence review’ on ‘the impacts of misinformation’. Commissioned by the government’s chief scientific adviser, it would focus on ‘how to measure the problem, assess harms and counter and mitigate these harms’.
That report has now been published and the headline finding is that ‘anti-LGBTQ+ narratives’ – such as claiming that state schools and other public authorities have been captured by gender ideology, and questioning whether biological males should be allowed to compete in women’s sports – are examples of misleading and false information that cause harm, alongside climate denial and deepfake images. The authors conclude that such misinformation, amplified by X’s sinister algorithms, poses a ‘systemic national risk’ and a ‘persistent threat to democratic governance, public trust, national security, and effective policy delivery’. In other words, if you claim that Imane Khelif, the gold medal-winning Olympic boxer, is a man, you are an anti-democratic extremist and should be silenced.
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