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The South Australian state Labor government has recently announced its intention to spend $2.6 million over four years on a program to educate children in every South Australian primary school about the dangers of online misinformation in a nation-first “media literacy program”.

To quote the Premier:

“Right across the Western world we are seeing the rise of populism and spread of misinformation and it’s never been more important to give our kids the tools they need to think critically and separate fact from fiction.”

Social Media and the Rise of ‘Populism’

It’s interesting how it’s always “populism” that is so concerning. I never hear governments complaining about the rise of radical leftist ideologies which have had such a corrosive effect on so many young peoples’ lives.

Nothing has “radicalised” young men more than the toxic progressive ideology. No right-wing mis or dis information was necessary for this “radicalisation”, just leftist nonsense and governments which disregarded all rational concerns.

What makes social media so concerning to left-wing governments is the fact that anyone can get on social media and voice their opinion. The Overton window has shifted. The acceptable “range” of political discussion in Australia and throughout the western world has changed, and this shift has largely been driven by social media.

It is now harder for political and cultural narratives to be controlled through the mainstream media because young people are not as engaged with it, so they find alternate perspectives on social media.

And why wouldn’t they?

After all, I have no doubt that because of social media, especially X, driving the discussion, the mainstream media are forced to engage with it to some degree, meaning the political class has to engage with it as well.

Social media certainly has its problems. There’s no question that it can be very harmful to the minds of children if they are habitually using it from an early age.

I suspect that the more governments try to control political and cultural narratives by calling every inconvenient fact or opinion “misinformation,” the more people will reject this kind of manipulation.

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YouTube Transcript of the Above Video

Well, the South Australian State Labor government has recently announced its intention to spend $2.6 million over four years on a program to educate children in every South Australian primary school about the dangers of online misinformation in a nation-first media literacy program.

To quote the premier, Peter Malinauskas, “While their parents grew up consuming news from trustworthy mainstream news sources, young people are increasingly exposed to a raft of untrustworthy sources spreading harmful misinformation online. Right across the Western world, we’re seeing the rise of populism and the spread of misinformation. And it’s never been more important to give our kids the tools they need to think critically and separate fact from fiction.”

Well, it’s interesting how it’s always populism that’s so concerning. You never hear governments complaining about the rise of leftist ideologies, which have actually had a corrosive effect on so many young people’s lives. And I can only assume that in this context, populism means things like concern about the manosphere, which itself is, of course, a reaction to the left-wing radicalisation that’s been happening for years. Nothing has radicalised young men more than totalitarianism and a toxic progressive ideology. These were largely the result of government actions. No right-wing misinformation was necessary for this radicalisation — just leftist insanity and governments which all disregarded rational concerns.

What makes social media so concerning to left-wing governments is the fact that anyone can get on social media and voice their opinion. What a terrible thing that must be. This can be good or it can be bad. To me, what they seem most concerned about is the fact that the Overton window has shifted and the acceptable range of political discussion in Australia and throughout the West has changed. That shift has been driven mainly by social media. Simply put, it’s harder for political and cultural narratives to be controlled through the mainstream media because young people are not engaged with it. They don’t trust it. So they’re finding alternative perspectives on social media.

And let’s be honest, why wouldn’t they? After all, I’ve got no doubt that if we didn’t have social media, we wouldn’t be hearing any discussion of some of these issues in the mainstream media at all. And if it was discussed, it would be dismissed as a conspiracy theory or racism or white supremacy or whatever. But because of social media, and especially X driving that discussion, the mainstream media are now forced to engage with it, meaning that the political class has got to engage with it as well. Without social media, we’d probably still be hearing about the melting ice caps and how the polar bears have got nowhere to live. But the falsehoods of the institutions that push these narratives have now been openly exposed on places like X, especially since Elon Musk took it over.

Social media certainly does have its issues. There’s no question that it can be harmful to the minds of children if they’re using it habitually and from an early age. But it’s probably true of smartphones in general. I really don’t have any problem with such harms being discussed in a child’s education. But this educational initiative is not being framed around phone addiction, a child’s developing brain, or the psychological issues that can follow from excessive social media use. Instead, it’s being framed around misinformation and populism. I mean, haven’t we dealt with that already?

That’s probably why Labor have been so determined to ban the under-16s from social media as well, because it’s not about preventing harms associated with use. This ban is never going to achieve that. But really, this is about preventing them from accessing perspectives that challenge the leftist narrative imposed on them by the educational system. The longer they have to wait to see populist content, the better it is for the Labor government.

Labor are so concerned about the rise of so-called populism in Australia that they feel the need to guide children into seeking left-wing fact checks on everything, which is not teaching children to think for themselves at all. This is not education and it’s not critical thinking. It’s propaganda. It’s training children to unquestioningly accept the opinions of approved sources while disregarding everything else, regardless of what the actual arguments or points being made are. So much for teaching a child how, not what to think. That’s the purpose of education after all, isn’t it?

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Originally published as an email newsletter from Senator Alex Antic.

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