Fake News; The Modern Day Plague
There was a time when information was accurate, trustworthy and well thought out by the editors of an organisation. At the Nation Media group, we had newspaper chief editors like the great Tom Mshindi.
That was before the advent of social media channels like Facebook, Tweeter, WhatsApp and the like.
When these media channels come in, traditional media was forced to either adapt or they die.
Social media came with a major revolution on how we received and consumed information. One of these was how one would get instant information almost like magic. And cheaper too.
But liberalization of information through Social Media has come with some setbacks. And this is the topic of my discussion today.
Freedom of expression forms part of the unalienable rights in democratic nations. The term “Freedom of expression” almost sounded synonymous with democracy. Like twins. The freedom to speak your mind without persecution almost defined what democracy meant.
As enticing as it may sound, freedom of expression is parameter-less. For example, where does your circle of freedom of expression start and end? In other words, where is the limit of your freedom of your expression?
Democracy as a system has not defined that. And I believe no system including our own traditional set up did.
That is why I can not use some words like “Olong” on my elder sister. She hates it when I tell her “oolongi thoong Nakang!”. I set out to understand this and my conclusion came down to everyone’s desire to be trusted when delivering information. However, how do you rate information. How do you know the information you are receiving is based on facts?
In the age of instant information, consumers of information do not have time to find out whether the information they are consuming is correct. And that is the problem and so my rant of the day.
Fake News. Propaganda. Lies. Misinformation.
During world war 2, propaganda formed part of the strategy of the war. Misinformation was probably the number one tool to weaken the enemy. But world war 2 happened 80 years ago today. They did not have computers that would spread information instantaneously.
That is different now. A liar somewhere in the Philippines can send a message on social media at 9:45a.m and by 9:46a.m, the message reaches thousands of recipients across the world. INSTANTLY.
That is scary.
It is something to be concerned about because Fake News is the modern day major plague.
If I was asked; what will bring the world to its knees, my bet would be misinformation. And for sure we are starting to reap the fruits of it today.
Let me give you my dissection of the problem. When you go to the market today, to buy yourself a cloth you will find a lot of clothes there. While selecting the one that fits, the shop owner will try to entice you to buy any cloth you pick. But you don’t listen to him until you find the one cloth that you really like. The reason is simple, you don’t want to go back home with a bad choice of clothes from the shop. Right?
However, when it comes to information which I think is like a cloth at the shop, we do not have the time to scrutinize as we do to the cloth we want. But we should, it is important we did. And if we don’t, we should not resupply that lie to unsuspecting consumers.
A lot of you here are holding important positions in government or other institutions. Many more will join on that list. If you do, there will be only thing that will liberate your soul. TRUTH.
Truth matters. Truth forms the basics of societal norms. You broke that, or you let that to be broken you will put enormous damage to trust. A society whose trust is mutilated is a weakened society…
