#6: fake news
G'day
On the one hand, it doesn't feel like Spring 2020 is a great time to be a fresh startup finding its feet.
On the other hand, if we survive this year, we know we've got something.
Watch this space.
ABOVE THE FOLD
- ??fake news spreads like a virus
BELOW THE FOLD
- ??the red pill
- ????wfh
- ??? And finally...Facebook and Civilization
_______________________________
ABOVE THE FOLD
??fighting fake news
Fighting the biological virus is one thing. Fighting the misinformation associated with it is a whole other. The World Health Organization has set up EPI-WIN to "provide a vaccine against misinformation", and has joined TikTok to get down with the kids about washing hands.
In discussing COVID-19 with one of my actual kids he mentions a popular mobile phone game: Plague, Inc. To date it has had about 200K downloads and made about $1m for its creators. In it:
Your pathogen has just infected 'Patient Zero'. Now you must bring about the end of human history by evolving a deadly, global Plague whilst adapting against everything humanity can do to defend itself.
Apropos, no?
So we downloaded for $1.
Instead of being thrown into a world where a mysterious new biological virus is killing the the global population, we're thrown into the fake news version of the game, where the aim is to deceive the world with misinformation. What we're spreading may be different, but the mechanics of the game are pretty much the same as if we're spreading a new virus.
First we must build our Manifesto, what exactly is the misinformation we wish to inflict upon the world? Our fake news is a medical emergency: MIKEV-20. What is our motivation? Is it political power? Money? Fame? Who are we going to blame for this? The Elite, of course, choosing them over all the other usual suspects: The Illuminati, Science, Women.
We must balance virality, plausibility and community to optimize the spread of the lies. Things that go very viral very quickly can lack plausibility and vice-versa.
In the biological virus version of the game you have to balance between infectivity, severity and lethality. The more lethal the virus, the less infectious it is. The way to win is to start your virus with mild symptoms and make it highly infectious. Once a large majority have contracted the virus you then evolve it to become more deadly.
In our fake news variation you can build your community by tweeting mean things, extending the list of victims, accusing critics of bias, funding alternative experts, blaming the fake news media and more:
Can we deceive the entire world before the fact checkers disprove MIKEV-20?
The truth never stood a chance:
_____________________________
BELOW THE FOLD
??the red pill
It feels very much like the coronavirus crisis is one of those events, like the advent of the internet, 911, Brexit, which changes things irreversibly.
Even if this outbreak is not the deadly global pandemic we fear it might be, there will be a shift. We are all destined to be more distant, less interactive, less together, more at home. Cheek kisses may be a thing of the past. Please not hugs.
Now spin this forward just 5 years, Facebook (see below) still owns your virtual identity, and as we explored last week in #5, your virtual reality space, through Oculus. Your headset has become as much a part of your life as your mobile device is right now. Inside that space is where you meet your friends and do your work.
And you don't even need to go outside to exercise because:
Inside your virtual bubble, it won't matter if the world outside is falling apart.
What applications can we build together for this world? Put your ideas in the comments below. Or DM me.
????wfh
It looks like for the next few months, more people will be working from home. And, as that becomes increasingly the norm, more companies will start to think of themselves as remote first. Here's how to think about this:
- If you are new to wfh, keep yourself energized
- Remote teams need to communicate differently
- And, for companies, becoming remote first is a strategy that needs deep thought.
??? And finally...Facebook and Civilization
A forerunner to Plague, Inc., was Sid Meier's Civilization, a computer game in which the player oversees the birth, growth, and eventual dominance or destruction of an entire civilization. It's epic.
When I was writing Crunch Time about 20 years ago, it was the biggest thing, and the book's intro opens using the game's inter-civilisational quest for dominance as a metaphor, perhaps overstretched. Now Steven Levy opens Facebook: The Inside Story, with the same metaphor. Mark Zuckerberg, callow teenage coder, was addicted to Civilization. In time of course, he would go on to build his own civilization of 2 and a half billion regular users, and that empire has had its share of ups and downs.
The book is thrillingly detailed if you are a digital comms geek like me. I'm not going to review it here because you can find that much better elsewhere. But if you are interested:
Ask me a question about Facebook and I'll use the book to answer it next week. Use the comments below or DM me.
Thanks all for joining me during these interesting times.
If you have read this far, click like!
Mike