Amsterdam mayor calls for 'discomfort' in public debate as antidote to fake news

Amsterdam mayor Femke Halsema remarked on Monday that the establishment bears a degree of responsibility for the growing mistrust and the emergence of 'alternative facts' in society. Speaking at the opening of the academic year at the University of Amsterdam, she urged students to "embrace discomfort" in public debates, promoting nuance and critical analysis as vital tools in combatting the spread of fake news.

"Alternative facts and disdain for experts did not appear out of nowhere," she said. According to her, fake news or 'alternative facts' are not necessarily the result of political malice or conspiracy thinking, "but far more often they come from deep fear and distrust of the actions of the administrative establishment."

According to the mayor, the establishment gives people reasons to be skeptical due to decades of technocratic governance that often appealed to supposed objectivity to demonstrate the inevitability of the implemented policies. "People became figures and statistics, everyday problems but also often major problems were reduced to policy goals," she said. "Soulless technocracy has given birth to a monster and it is called alternative facts. And the administrative establishment - and for the record I include myself in that - should take note of this," she added.

The mayor also criticized certain measures, such as the curfew implemented during the pandemic, calling it "extremely debatable" due to the lack of available information on how a curfew would affect people's behavior and effectively combat the spread of the virus. "By the semblance of objectivity that surrounded the far-reaching curfew restrictions on freedom, very valid legal and ethical concerns were placed outside the discussion, and opponents of the measure were disqualified as deniers of the gravity of the problem. Not surprisingly, this led to great distrust," she noted.

When the curfew was implemented in the Netherlands at the beginning of 2021, Halsema notably called for more attention to the mental consequences of the lockdown for young people. "I recognize the necessity of the curfew and other measures, but if we consider granting more freedoms, think first of young people," she said in February 2021.

Halsema suggested in her speech that the answer to mistrust, alternative facts, and technocracy is more public debates, more nuance, and more discomfort "Big, real problems deserve nuance, curiosity, doubt. They deserve a public search for truth, for understanding, for consensus by allowing the discomfort of opposing and divergent positions and critically questioning each other about them," she said.