Kerry warns information freedom complicates democracy in nation
Date
9/30/2024 8:10:11 AM
(MENAFN) Former presidential climate envoy John Kerry emphasized that the freedom for individuals to choose their sources of information complicates consensus-building and effective governance.
At a World Economic Forum (WEF) panel on Green Energy last week, the former Secretary of State under President Barack Obama criticized the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which protects freedoms of speech and the press.
Kerry pointed out that social media poses challenges for building consensus in democracies. “It's really hard to govern today,” he remarked.
“The referees we used to have to determine what is fact and what isn't have kind of been eviscerated,” he noted, adding that individuals now decide where to get their news. “If people go to only one source… and they're putting out disinformation, our First Amendment stands as a major block to simply hammering it out of existence,” he asserted.
As long as Democrats can “win ground” and “win the right to govern,” they would be “free to implement change,” the former Democratic senator stated.
“I think democracies are very challenged right now and have not proven they can move fast enough or big enough to address the challenges we face. To me, that is part of what this race, this election, is all about,” he added.
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