Ögmundur Jónasson says distrust threatens democracy

Former Icelandic minister Ögmundur Jónasson argues that claims of fake news can be used to undermine democracy. In a column published by mbl.is from Morgunblaðið, he says people are increasingly encouraged to doubt their ability to form independent opinions.

Jónasson writes that technology can amplify fabricated versions of the truth, influence how people think and portray entire nations as untrustworthy. It can also cast well-intentioned people as villains and wrongdoers as heroes, he says.

But because people know such manipulation is possible, those in power have new ways to exploit that awareness: by making people doubt everything and everyone, including themselves. This, he argues, is a weapon now used constantly, and growing awareness of fake news can gradually weaken democracy.

Jónasson cites claims about Iceland’s recent referendum on the European Union. According to the EU enlargement commissioner, the result was shaped by pressure and false propaganda from forces in both the east and west. Others said Icelanders had simply been tricked, as the British were during the Brexit vote.

He also points to Romania, where voters who supported a presidential candidate were said to have swallowed Russian propaganda. A constitutional court then barred the winning candidate from standing, with the approval of NATO and the EU. Jónasson says the response was to celebrate that voters had been saved from false propaganda and mistaken opinions.

He warns that allegations of fake news and disinformation can become tools for controlling people, persuading them that they cannot form their own views in an uncertain world. The safest course, he says, is then presented as staying on the sidelines and letting those who supposedly know best make decisions. That, he argues, would mean abandoning democracy.

Jónasson says the outcomes of the Brexit vote and Iceland’s referendum were, ultimately, democratic decisions. He asks whether people should accept that their choices cannot be trusted because they must have been influenced by someone else. “For my part, I do not accept that I can never be myself,” he writes. “What about you?”