Tom Corbett – once a Republican Governor of Pennsylvania, for the last four years one of the anti-disinformation firebrands – gave an interview on US election day, revealing his thoughts on “dis/misinformation,” and what to do about it.
Corbett left his government job in 2015 and now works for Keep Our Republic – a non profit that focuses on the swing states of Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. (Corbett may or may not have been disappointed, but President Trump ended up winning in all three).
Keep Our Republic consists of former officials from both Republican and Democratic parties, but its specific interest in the three states, along the language it uses to describe its purpose – countering “the threats facing our elections,” and declaring, “we are most tightly focused on election integrity” – is pretty telling.
Corbett reinforced this impression with his statements about “dangerous online disinformation” since 2020, along with the obligatory mention of “foreign governments trying to divide the country” – where plurality of political opinion and choices is once again treated as something negative, “a polarization,” instead of what it really is – a democracy.
Corbett’s other statements made during the interview also revealed his political stance, for example when he went for the “shouting fire in a crowded theater” analogy while bashing the role of social media, and touching on the issue of subjecting these platforms to more regulation.
“What is stated on social media today and is being repeated over and over again is very dangerous. You can’t go into a movie theater and yell ‘fire!’ There’s a great panic,” he said.
The “shouting fire in theater” analogy is used with the goal of declaring that a certain kind of speech is not protected by the First Amendment. In reality, this interpretation stems from a judge’s opinion issued in a ruling during the First World War that has since been overturned (Brandenburg v. Ohio).
As for what the future may hold, the former Pennsylvania governor expressed his “concerns.”
He singled out “violence” (around elections) as one of those concerns, which, according to him, only became a real issue in the last 8 to 10 years (i.e. – since Trump was first elected president in 2016, and in the campaign leading up to that).
And Corbett thinks that “a lot of that” has to do with people getting informed “in the various news outlets that they follow.”
Finally, the former governor did a little “plug-in” for the organization he now works for, saying it was neither red or blue, but “the truth team.”
“I think people have to be very careful in anything that they look at online and ask ‘give me evidence that this happened’,” Corbett said.
He did not, however, advise the same type of caution when trusting whatever traditional broadcasters and other legacy media are saying.
