Dissecting Misinformation & Disinformation: Lessons from Thirukkural

In an age where technology can bridge continents and enlighten minds, it also harbors a darker side—fueling the fires of division through the potent forces of misinformation and disinformation, as evidenced by the recent surge of anti-Islamic, anti-migration riots and protests led by far-right factions in the UK.

The clamour was instigated by a message that circulated on social media that alleged that the mass stabbing of three children was done by a Muslim asylum seeker. The rioters refused to accept the facts revealed by the Government of the UK which clarified that the stabber was a British citizen based out of Cardiff born to Rwandan parents. This is the super-power of misinformation and disinformation; it can enable us to trust and believe that the False is True and True is False. In this article, we will dissect and dive deep into understanding the mis and disinformation and how we can neutralize the spread to stop the same in this high-octane tech-driven world.

According to research conducted in 2008 by the University of California, the average human brain is exposed to 34 gigabytes of information daily. A revised study in 2017 raised the number to 74 gigabytes and daily information exposure is growing by 5% each year. Astounding right? ?Yes, when we delve deep into our daily lives with near-constant exposure to smart devices and news consumption through various channels the above number range of 34 GB – 74 GB looks realistic and based on our consumption our number will be anywhere between this range.

As we navigate through our daily life in this information tsunami the most difficult part is recognizing and segregating the news consumed and trashing the inaccurate ones, it is difficult because even the most organized media players also adopt unethical practices in broadcasting just for the sake of TRP’s or use flashy headlines as clickbait if it is broadcasted digitally. Why is this process of recognition and segregation highly important? This is because we don’t just consume the news and information but technology has enabled us with the super-power of sharing and spreading it accompanied with our thoughts on the current boiling event. This secondary process of dissemination has this mighty ability to manipulate and influence other people’s minds by contaminating the actual information – these are known as misinformation and disinformation.

Both the terms may look like they convey the same meaning but there is a nuance-level difference in the “INTENT” in the usage of both these terms. Misinformation is the inadvertent spread of false information without intent to harm, while disinformation is false information designed to mislead others and is deliberately spread with the intent to confuse fact and fiction. With breaking news breaking the headlines every hour on almost all news platforms, it is very common for people to witness the spread of misinformation. This happens when we share false information (a piece of breaking news) as a fact without thoroughly checking that the information we are sharing is accurate. While the malicious intent is absent here as the sharing happens inadvertently and most of the time, we are instigated by external stimuli to share it as early as possible with our thoughts and perception of the same.

Disinformation on the other hand is false information that is designed and spread to mislead others and is deliberately spread with the intent to manipulate truth and facts. This is most commonly used to spread political propaganda, and conspiracy theories and to create hate and clamour in society. The initial sharing or publishing of this information is done with the intent to cause harm and mislead however the subsequent sharing happens unwittingly (the perpetrators capitalize on this reaction of the larger public to achieve the true intention of the information).

So what do we do or how do we handle this precarious daily-life situation which seeps into us like leeches without even us noticing it? This is not a recent phenomenon or it is a by-product of the technological advancements this is co-existing with humans since we evolved from apes. Our master Beardo Thiruvalluvar has written about this centuries ago in Thirukkural – 423

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In this Kural he emphasizes the importance of dissecting the truth from the various information we hear and listen to and he stresses whosoever be the communicator or whatever the channel or mode of information, the essence of true knowledge is in understanding it by dissecting the truth from the original message.

In Kural–845, he says that only fools will pretend to know about something that they have never read or learned, and by acting so they are just paving the way for others to suspect the existing knowledge they have learned and mastered.

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It is highly important to understand these two Kurals from the perspective of dissecting and stopping the spread of the mis and disinformation pieces. Abstaining from sharing such pieces of information without dissecting the actual truth, facts, and intention of such information itself will pave the way for a more peaceful and orderly society as per Thirukkural 423. With affordable smartphones and cheap disposable data available, everyone has become professionals with shallow knowledge pretending to be scholars in that subject and sharing their shallow perspective without any fundamental understanding of the issue at hand. This practice of pretending knowledge will only cause us more dent than good as per Thirukkural 845.?

We have all witnessed the surge in misinformation and disinformation especially after the wide adoption of smart devices powered by lightning-fast internet, the saddest part is that we have also been victims of this spread of confusion without even being aware of the same. Every YouTube video/short, Instagram Reel, or Tik-Tok video that we consume relentlessly conveys to us some kind of news or information, however, most of the time we tend to forget that these are unverified pieces of information that are factually incorrect and are mostly created by digital creators driven by the FOMO (Fear of missing out) trend. As consumers, we have to be scrupulous even in consuming this factually incorrect information as this can shape our thoughts and perceptions about certain people, communities, or even a country. The second step of dissemination of this factually incorrect information propels it even more to reach more eyes thereby spreading like an uncontrollable forest fire.

The need for precision-level prudency in dissecting the information wave is the need of the hour and if we are unable to do so then we have to at least stay away from clicking on the “SHARE” button so that we can be the last point of contact in the raging forest fire.

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