#Truth2020
2016 was the year of post-truth. Since then, we have been lobbing the hot-potato of "Fake News" back and forth without any true, unified effort to define what it is and, more importantly, take measures to get rid of it once and for all.
No more.
Let 2020 be the year of truth in politics!
Democracy is imagined to be the best system (so far) for a large nation to make collective decisions, with the participation of everyone, for the good of all. The United States is the oldest existing representative democracy in existence today. Why is it that our current process for making decisions looks more like a trial by combat — a duel between politicians — than a melding of ideas?
We are the most powerful nation on the Earth…for now. We are becoming our own worst, and most dangerous enemy. Whether you think it's Russian propaganda agencies, or Facebook, Twitter and Google, or the Fake News agencies (whichever ones fit that label for you), or all of the above, it doesn't matter. Whatever it is that they are doing to us, we are the ones letting it happen!
#Hashtag
The good news is that we can also stop it. In collaboration with The Canonical Debate Lab, The Great American Debate, The Internet Government, and The Pro-Truth Pledge, I am hereby declaring the #Truth2020 movement. It is not an organization. It has no owner. It is a hashtag. It is a philosophy. It is a new standard for behavior online, and between people.
In future posts here, on Twitter, and on the #Truth2020 web site, we will be detailing what we believe it means to get at the truth. But this will be just our contribution. We will be reaching out to fact-checkers, journalists, web sites, organizations, companies, politicians, and anyone else that is willing to participate in this effort for their perspectives. We will ask of each group, each profession, each collective to define for themselves how best they can contribute, what they consider to be a proper code of conduct, and declare these publicly online.
The Goal
We want no more, and no less, than conversations to be productive! We want arguments to be about informing, rather than tearing down. We want to make the BEST CHOICES, not just win the debate!
Politics is about doing things, not because they are the right thing to do, but because it will give you the upper hand.
This is a completely non-partisan movement. We fight over solutions to the problems we face, not because we like to disagree, but because they are HARD problems, with no easy and no simple solutions. The right way to solve them is to discuss the details, and understand the gives and takes. So we need to break this pattern of pretending the solution is easy and one-sided. We need to throw politics under the bus, along with our egos, and learn how to admit that other people may have a point.
If nothing else, it's time to at least raise the standards of conversation online. It should not be acceptable to insult someone you don't know because they disagree with you. It should be expected that when someone makes a point, they back it up with proof. When someone forwards you information, they should at the very least tell you where it came from (and have read more than just the headline!). Success looks like a long thread of people going back and forth, zeroing in on the answers, rather than a mob of people throwing up their hands in feigned exasperation.
What Can I Do?
It's very simple: Demand the truth!
Be an Agent of Change
For this movement to be successful, it requires a change in behavior for each and every one of us. For those of us that are just participating in online conversation, it's as simple as changing some habits:
- Be respectful
- Be humble
- Ask for proof
- Discuss the points, not the person
- Do not assume you know what someone is thinking — ask for clarification
- Read and verify before sharing
- Place truth over politics
- Tag your fact-checking and evidence-based posts with #Truth2020 and spread the word!
If you want to go a step further, take the Pro-Truth Pledge! We did!
Help Define the Change We'd Like to See
We will be posting more guidelines for debate etiquette in the future. But this is not just our movement, it is yours! If you have your own suggestions, send them to us, send them to your friends, send them to your "enemies" (who are really your allies: we can find good compromises!). Create your own declarations for what getting at the truth means to you and your area of expertise, and post it online!
Some of the things that we will be doing:
- Creating online "tags" to point out typical types of bad behavior, and highlight good behavior
- Produce a set of standards to describe and encourage good faith behavior online
- Build tools to encourage truthful discussions
- Promote awareness of other groups that are participating in the #Truth2020 movement
Help Organize the Change
For those of you working on the elections, publishing information, doing fact-checking, or building tools that can help, please contact us! We encourage you to come up with your own declarations as to how you are helping make #Truth2020 happen. The more we work together, the bigger and stronger this movement can grow.
Every election year, candidates drum up their own marketing pitch for how they are going to make a change in Washington. They know we are all fed up, and have been for decades. For them, it's all about the image. But if we want REAL change, it's not up to them, it's up to us: it's time to demand truth in politics!
