The Aspen Institute’s Commission on Information Disorder released a report earlier this month containing 15 recommendations for addressing the “mis and disinformation crisis” in the United States. The report reflected the input of 25 experts, whom a commission interviewed for “600 minutes” (an odd way of saying that it interviewed each expert for less than half an hour). The commission tried to embrace what it called a “non-partisan and non-ideological approach.”
Though the Aspen Institute invested considerable resources in this effort, the finished report contains few promising ideas for addressing the problem in government, private industry, and civil society. The report fails to counteract the ideological biases of its authors. It misses an opportunity to grapple with the role of polarization in our trust crisis. And it fails to draw on more conservative and libertarian ideas to design balanced policies.
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