We are told that democracy is under threat because the very idea of ‘truth’ is in crisis. Fake news spreads unchecked, social media warps our sense of reality and the misinformed public are blamed for the resulting political division and instability. Governments and media institutions alike increasingly insist that the future of democracy depends on winning the ‘war on disinformation’.

But what if this diagnosis is wrong?

In Policing the Truth, Justin Schlosberg argues that the real danger lies not in the spread of disinformation but in the growing culture of information control. He reveals how powerful institutions across liberal and populist democracies increasingly determine what can be known, said and believed – while dissent and scepticism are routinely dismissed as threats to truth itself.

Drawing on years of rigorous original research, in-depth historical analysis and his own experiences as a self-described ‘rogue academic’– including sustained legal threats and public attacks triggered by research featured in this book – Schlosberg exposes the hidden mechanisms of a new form of McCarthyism that has taken root in Britain and beyond. As well as tracing the historical origins of this phenomenon, he explains why today’s battle over truth is, at its core, a struggle over who gets to define reality.

Policing the Truth is a timely and necessary intervention into one of the defining political and media debates of our age and offers a powerful new framework for understanding democracy and free speech.

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