What Does It Actually Mean To Fight For Truth?

“Fama, Malum Qua Non Aliud Velocius Ullum”?—Virgil…The Aeneid; Book IV, line 174

Translation:

“Rumor than, whom no other evil thing is faster.”?

Virgil, who most probably wrote this line in Rome sometime between 30 and 19 BCE during the reign of Augustus, might have been the originator of one of the world's first memes, which has evolved and morphed forward into the language of its time…but has never lost its core meaning.?

Fast forward to the middle of the 1800s in the United States, and a more modern version of the line became associated with one of my favorite authors, Mark Twain:

“A lie is halfway around the world before the truth has got its boots on.”

Except, for the seeming fact, that he never said it.?

However, the great British satirist Jonathan Swift wrote, in 1712, in a long essay titled The Art of Political Lying:

“Few lies carry the inventor’s mark, and the most prostitute enemy to truth may spread a thousand, without being known for the author: besides, as the vilest writer hath his readers, so the greatest liar hath his believers: and it often happens, that if a lie be believed only for an hour, it hath done its work, and there is no further occasion for it. Falsehood flies, and truth comes limping after it, so that when men come to be undeceived, it is too late; the jest is over, and the tale hath had its effect: like a man, who hath thought of a good repartee when the discourse is changed, or the company parted; or like a physician, who hath found out an infallible medicine, after the patient is dead.”

His very clear bottom line outcome…once it's out, it's too late. Damage done. Patient dead.

Now remember, to the best of my knowledge, there was no X in Swift’s day, and I doubt if Facebook was around for Virgil. Come on, they didn’t even have a smart-phone (imagine that). And yet,they were concerned not just with the speed of spreading lies but with the danger they posed and the damage they did.

Fast forward to our hate-filled and war-torn current reality. X (formerly Prince, or is that Twitter…); Meta, in all its spreading glory, and the rest are consuming our global society with:

• FOMO
• HATE
• False News
• Fake Emotions?
• Incitements?
• And cat videos (a metaphor for all mindless posts, not a hit on cats—KNEE-JERK ALERT)

And it gets worse every day, with a major United States Presidential election looming on the near horizon.?

A recent and terrible example was the news of a tragic hospital explosion in Gaza. Israel was immediately blamed by Hamas…the news was spread…riots erupted around the world (despite Israeli protestation of innocence)…and now the same media that spread the original story is walking it back after investigation as it appears likely that it was a terrorist rocket gone astray…hitting the parking lot.?

And as Swift prophesized:?

“And it often happens, that if a lie be believed only for an hour, it hath done its work…like a man, who hath thought of a good repartee when the discourse is changed, or the company parted; or like a physician, who hath found out an infallible medicine, after the patient is dead.”

KNEE JERK ALERT…this isn’t about Israel/Gaza….no politics, please…it’s about the dangers of the grim efficiency of Social Media to amplify as Virgil said so long ago…“No other evil thing is faster.”

And it's that evil thing that concerns me. This week alone, beyond the obvious,? there were a number of news specials on the dangers of Social Media to the young:

• Hate
• Bullying
• Suicide
• Eating disorders
• Baseless violence?

And on and on…

As business people, we write and obsess about purposeful engagement and yet we do little or nothing to be purposeful about how we support communication and the spread of information.

Dear readers, as I have written and soap-boxed on before, we have allowed one of the great potential forces in our digital world to become a powerful force of “evil” as envisioned by Virgil.?

And it's only getting worse. Every day brings us a new story of tragic proportions whose roots are in Social Media.

Here is my IMAGINE question…ARE YOU READY TO FIGHT FOR TRUTH?

• Think before you share – every share feeds the algorithm, even if you just mean to show how ridiculous something is.
• Teach the proper use of social media – make sure your schools or associations are taking an active role in educating all…even us.
• Limit social media time – your own…your kids’…
• Demand childproof controls – as I’ve written before, China has them, exports TIKTOK without them, and lobbies against them.
• Regulate – enough with the Tech Giant BS…social media is media and subject to the same rules, standards, and accountability.
• Use your advertising budgets for leverage – follow the money…demand verified brand and platform safety.
• Support accountable and credible news sources – who says you have to get your news from a scrolling firehose of rhetoric. Do your research. Find a source…better two or more for the framing…I have multiple…best to get a full view…contrast and compare. They have suffered because we have allowed them to fall prey to the economics of social platforms…take back your news.
• Return to a state of critical thinking – stop believing level-one? gossip/shares. Question. Ask. Dig deeper.?
• KNEE JERK ALERT --? as a way of life. Stop. Ponder. Breathe deeply.

Dear readers, lives are at stake here. For real. And only people like us—a professional community of people who respect opinions and are open to real change—can make a difference.

Stand up for Truth…not THE Truth…you might have noticed…way too subjective…but Truth as a concept.?

#thinkbeforeyoushare

What’s your view?