Definitely. This article isn't about "disinformation and dissent", or even about why "the war on disinformation" is bad. Instead, the author seems to be waging his own war on misinformation -- it's just that the misinformation comes from everyone else.

This is emblematic of the "conservative" response to the "liberal" response to misinformation. As an example, Trump was clearly the most visible (and therefore most impactful) source of COVID disinformation in the US. The liberal response was to say that this was dangerous because people would not take the virus seriously. However, the author instead blames Fauci and the CDC for our poor response. Apparently, revising one's statements based on new information counts as lying.

If part of this article is to point out why we cannot trust our institutions (and hence why we get misinformation), why not point out the most impactful sources of misinformation? The author says the following:

> misinformation and disinformation naturally abound when there is very little trust in sense-making institutions

More importantly, disinformation naturally abounds when a sense-making institution is itself spewing disinformation. This, however, does not seem to be important to the author.

The clearest example of why the author's examples do not support his thesis is his take on Fauci, the CDC, and WHO. If we are to solve our issues with public discourse and better seek the truth, we must be good at changing our minds when new evidence comes to light. The author instead seems to claim that public official revising their guidelines counts as lying and misinformation. Instead, we could consider this the paragon for truth: we revise our beliefs when the evidence indicates we should.

Though I think this article nearly entirely misses the mark, and that the author is severely misguided in his thesis, there are still nuggets I agree with:

> Yet rather than take responsibility for poorly-informed policy decisions, the common refrain from public institutions has been to blame everyday Americans.

Absolutely agree with this. Everyday Americans can hardly be blamed for this situation, IMO. The blame needs to the source of the disinformation and the source of inconsistent policies. I'll certainly agree that our public health officials should have done a better job with communication, even with the heavy amount of disinformation from the president.

> When the only acceptable information is that approved by the ruling administration, there can be no meaningful check on state power.

I absolutely agree on this too. Clearly, government censorship is not a good idea. A good example is the personality cult around Trump: many of his supporters do not care what he does. Anything approved by Trump is accepted as fact, and if this group of people had more power, it would become very difficult to check. We absolutely should be very wary of anything which gives the government control over information.

And finally, I'll agree with @azinman2 from the parent comment:

> We need to find a way to fundamentally change the incentives in media

So true. The incentive of media (both social media and news media) is focused wholly on engagement and driving clicks for advertisers. This is fundamentally opposed to the search for truth. It only serves to increase the amount of incendiary media, which increases polarization, etc. It is a terrible situation, and I think we often underestimate the consequences. I'll happily agree that media should not be trusted, simply because the incentive to report truth does not exist (or at least is trumped by the incentive to make money).