Fake news: Why we want it and here's how we can bring it under control
One of the biggest problems in the world today is the growing advent and acceptance of fake news. Despite the increasing bid by mainstream media to clarify facts propagated by powerful leaders, and WhatsApps and fake videos posted by the common man, fake news continues to rise and be consumed by a large section of the public – regardless of their political views.
No, it’s not President Trump
What are the reasons for this? Many believe that the main reason is the President of the United States wagging his finger and saying, ‘You’re fake news’. But that would give him too much credit as it assumes that we are passive recipients of fake news. Nope, the origins of the fake news lie in the fact that many of us want it, consume it and share it even though we know it to be fake.
Emotionalism triumphs rationalism
Why do we do so? While in some cases the forwarding of such fake news is an honest mistake, the real reason is the triumph of what I call ‘emotionalism’ over rationalism. So far, mankind has proceeded on the premise that humans would act rationally if presented with facts. This is no longer the case. If you look at the comments section of any social media medium, the increasing arguments over Brexit, riots in Delhi, or Trump, the first reaction from most people is emotional and often filled with vitriol.
Being a news creator
What is the reason for this? The first reason is the sense of power that social media has. Rather than being an enabler for discussion, social media has empowered a person to believe they can create their own news and through Twitter hashtags and shares, they can enforce change on all the major issues talked about earlier. To enforce change in a world where everything is instant, requires constant tweeting and hence the earlier world where activists picketed governments and even worked with them is receding. Change can happen or so an increasing number of people believe from sitting in a drawing room.
Liberalism requires a rethink
The second and more dangerous problem is the failure of liberalism and democracy. It is clear that liberalism who assumed that most of the world thought like them because everyone had the vote, had failed.
Democracy does not come from just voting once every five years. This and the fact that seismic global events have forced people to confront friends, their loved ones about events they never had to before. I remember in the UK ‘politics’ was the dirty word, no one talked about it because it simply didn’t matter to their lives and was hence avoidable. This was also true of the very elite in India as well.
Today, long overdue political dialogues are being had, and as any amateur psychologist will tell you the first emotions will be betrayal, hurt and anger. People have by nature a herd mentality and the herd mentality assumes we all think as one on big issues. The fact that we are not creates shock, shock we are all still digesting. The good news is that after shock comes acceptance but we are still to reach that stage.
It’s cool to morph – loss of shame
The third reason for fake news is that people feel a need to show off on social media and frankly the downgrading in value of traditional media. The former could be seen in the morphed picture of people sitting with Ivanka Trump at the Taj Mahal. The problem with that is morphing and faking is considered cool, there is also little need to fact-check – either because we don’t have time and anyway it will disappear in the next Twitter cycle. This has led to a loss of ‘shame’ – people are now increasingly unashamed of being caught out in a lie.
Media needs to rethink coverage
The second point is that newspapers and news sites are losing relevance among the millennial generation. I have admittedly, interacted just briefly with this generation but the need to read, to absorb information from a paper is no long the prime concern for them. This is because greater knowledge is known about the owners and thus papers are seen increasingly seen as both ‘irrelevant’ and ‘biased.’ So, when a paper calls out a leader for defamatory speech, twisting facts, the tag of bias remains. I also feel that this generation hates being talked down to and perhaps the factual, grownup, objective tone of newspapers may need to be looked at. News sites need to change and how they do that is still the great big unknown.
Solutions?
These problems are too big to have immediate solutions but there are some facts we need to consider. Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp cannot stop the spread of fake news. If you are determined to circulate it, you will. Legislation is one step but it will require countries to get together and some censorship of the internet which will be unacceptable and possibly impossible. The only then is to work with people to understand their fury and hate, and educate them on what is a morphed picture and what isn’t.
I would suggest that just like airlines who make it mandatory for a safety drill to be in place before the plane can fly, social media mediums must be made to educate people on what is a morphed picture and how is it circulated. Information must be shared amongst them as to whether Mr or Mrs X has shared fake or hate speech and images before on other mediums before they open a new account.
If Mr X has shared hate speech on Facebook, his Twitter account must be investigated before he can open one. This investigation must carefully look at his friends etc. and for it be fair UN-sponsored organisations, trusted fact checking websites must also be involved and an accessible report published countrywide and worldwide could be brought out to explain why one was denied access.
People will naturally scream bias etc. and this will affect the companies’ profits but the world is in turmoil and this is a small price to pay. We need to put this in place now for the good of the world.