Back in August 2009, at the height of the Obamacare fight, the Obama White House advertised a “disinformation” email hotline:
There is a lot of disinformation about health insurance reform out there, spanning from control of personal finances to end of life care. These rumors often travel just below the surface via chain emails or through casual conversation. Since we can’t keep track of all of them here at the White House, we’re asking for your help. If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov.
This produced a torrent of conservative mockery about the Orwellian nature of asking people to report “fishy” political speech to the White House, as well as a lot of campaigns to inundate the tip box with trolling emails. Within two weeks, the Obama team shut down the “fishy” inbox entirely. It seemed destined to be one of those ideas that are too bad even for Washington politics.
But no bad idea is ever truly dead, it seems. There’s always a bigger fish. The Trump White House posted this on Tuesday:
A CALL TO ACTION: Submit “Media Bias” Tips
The White House recently launched a Media Bias Portal as a service to truth and transparency. Its purpose is to combat the baseless lies, purposely omitted context, and outright left-wing lunacy of the Fake News Media — a tall task that demands the help of everyone who believes in facts and accuracy over Fake News.
That’s why the White House is calling on everyday Americans to support the truth and hold the Fake News accountable. By visiting whitehouse.gov/biastips, anyone can submit biased or undeniably false articles, and valid submissions will be used to keep the Media Bias Portal updated.
So-called “journalists” have made it impossible to identify every false or misleading story, which is why help from the American people is essential. The days of the Fake News Media controlling the narrative with lies, fake anonymous sources, and willful bias are over.
If the legacy media won’t honor their responsibility to accurately inform the public, we know the American people will.
Submit a tip at whitehouse.gov/biastips.
Now, tracking media bias and lies is a worthy project, but soliciting people to report it to the government is no better an idea under Trump than it was under Obama.