OSCE 2017: “The Antidote to Fake News is the Truth”

The following video shows the intervention read by Henrik Clausen, representing Wiener Akademikerbund, at OSCE Warsaw on Monday, September 11, 2017.

Many thanks to Vlad Tepes for uploading this clip:

Below is the prepared text for Mr. Clausen’s intervention:

Distinguished delegates, ladies and gentlemen.

I am Henrik Clausen from Denmark, representing Wiener Akademikerbund, where I have been a proud board member for several years.

Today, I shall focus on the topic of so-called “Fake News” that become smear campaigns and propaganda for war and hatred. Once started, they can be very difficult to stop.

Let me tell you the secret antidote to Fake News: The truth, as told by free citizens. No State arbiter of Right and Wrong is needed, just the right of anyone to express what they hold to be true.

One famous Fake News story is the conspiracy theory that Russia hacked the American election. Oft-repeated in the old media, this story became propaganda for war and hatred, and led to severe international tension. Only new media analyzed the facts properly to conclude that the “Russian hacking” story had no substance.

At the Akademikerbund, we have deep confidence in man’s desire for truth and reason. We believe in a “Free marketplace of ideas”, that freedom is the right way to deal with Fake News. And we do need the authorities to protect this freedom, including the freedom to say silly or false things.

Thus, Akademikerbund recommends:

  • That OSCE give “Hate Speech” a clearer and legally workable definition.
  • That OSCE scale back subsidies of old media to create a more level playing field.
  • That OSCE pS focus on protecting freedom of expression as such, for all topics.
  • And finally, we call upon the OSCE Freedom of the Media Representative to clarify that publishing the truth can never constitute “hate speech”, and never be a punishable offense.

For links to previous articles about the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, see the OSCE Archives.

3 thoughts on “OSCE 2017: “The Antidote to Fake News is the Truth”

  1. We propose, to facilitate the protection of hens and chickens everywhere, the following steps for foxes to take:

    1) developing a clear definition of “breaking and entering” and “eating” so appropriate actions can be taken to focus clearly on only illegal actions by foxes, and not be overly burdensome to the bulk of law-abiding foxes;

    2) foxes should be primarily responsible for policing their own kind and enforcing the protection of chickens, a situation vastly more desirable than giving potentially-lethal and unregulated powers to the farmers. The Organization for Protection of Foxes Legal Rights should be given the duty of being the prime enforcers of the safety of chickens.

  2. We believe in a ‘Free marketplace of ideas’…

    And that, right there, in a proverbial nutshell, is the entire problem. Muslims and their EU enablers know damn well that Islam cannot possibly survive in the “Free marketplace of ideas”.

    Never has it been able to do so, not throughout this ideology’s entire history.

    Here is a simple thought experiment:

    Please name one country that ever voluntarily (and peacefully) converted to Islam.

    I’m waiting…

    Only the most erudite historians will make any mention of Zanzibar.

    Everywhere else on earth, the introduction of Islam (early or even more recently) has been at sword point and, typically involved a tsunami of bloodletting.

    To paraphrase Old Bill (from Act 2, Scene 2 of “MacBeth”):

    “Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood clean from Islam’s hand? No, these Muslim hands will rather the multitudinous seas incarnadine, making the green one red.”

    Please permit me to voluminously criticize (in alphabetical order) a supremely abducting, aggressive, amputative, Antisemitic, authoritarian, barbaric, bestial, castrating, child-abusing, coercive, cognitively-dissonant, controlling, corrupt, deceitful, dictatorial, divisive, dynastic, enslaving, equivocal, exclusionary, genocidal, goat-humping, homophobic, hostile, ignorant, inbred, intolerant, Invasive, Iron-Age, lying, marauding, mass-murdering, mendacious, misogynistic, mutilating, necrophilic, obsessive, oppressive, parasitic, perverted, petulant, pillaging, piratical, plundering, predatory, preferential, pretentious, preying, pro-Hitler, rapacious, raping, semi-retarded, terrorist, Theocratic, threatening, thuggish, Totalitarian, treacherous, truculent, tyrannous, uncooperative, unproductive, useless, vampiric, vicious, victimizing, violent, virulent, vulturine, xenophobic, assemblage that ever pretended to be worthy of the term, “culture”.

    Any questions?

  3. After I wrote this intervention, I discovered the following quote from Thomas Jefferson:

    Truth is the proper & sufficient antagonist to error.

    That really makes one happy 🙂

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