To restore trust in democracy, the US should lead a global 'fact fightback' | Timothy Garton Ash

Facebook, Twitter, Fox News – by blurring the truth, all pose a risk to democracy itself. But the US and EU can counter them together

To survive, democracy needs a minimum of shared truth. With the storming of the Capitol in Washington on 6 January, the US showed us just how dangerous it is when millions of citizens are led to deny an important, carefully verified fact – namely, who won the election.

To prosper, democracy needs a certain kind of public sphere, one in which citizens and their representatives engage in vigorous argument on the basis of shared facts. Restoring that kind of public sphere is now a central task for the renewal of liberal democracy. Call it the fact fightback.

Timothy Garton Ash is the author of Free Speech: Ten Principles for a Connected World

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