Future of truth
Media has contributed immensely in building and strengthening our society. Media helped preserve and promote our social and cultural values. Media helped break apartheid and brought reconciliation in South Africa. Media was crucial in many revolutions that ousted dictators in several countries in recent decades. But unfortunately, the modern media took an unusual turn in demolishing the truth. Is it because of the spread of the Internet? Will the continued advancement of technology will only make things worse in the world? Internet technology was created for the betterment of society. Technology is not at fault. It is the people who misuse it are responsible for this state of affairs.
Truth is fundamental for governance and for social bonding. As the entire world is electronically wired for digital society what will be the future of truth? As we note on a daily basis our media is besieged by websites with alternative facts (not truths), which spreads globally with the push of a button. The worst part is that some of these acts are purposefully done by people in authority for their personal benefit or for the benefit of the affiliated party or to smear the opponents.
No government can function without an unbiased opinion, reliable information and trust. The ultimate victims are the general public. It is destroying the entire apparatus of governance. In 2016 Oxford Dictionary chose ‘post-truth’ as the world of the year. This is how far the meaning of truth has been polluted. It seems like the only place we can find the truth is in the textbooks printed on paper! There is even a new word – agnotology. It is a way for people to doubt the facts and truth by inundating people with alternate facts and messages.
It is our second nature
Parents teach children not to lie from a very early age as part of moral education, a way of teaching children to be truthful. According to child psychologists, children by the age of 4 years fully understand the meaning of lies. As children grow, they learn to manipulate and learn how to lie such as cheating in games. But these are harmless lies. As children enter teenage their lies become a little more serious. And during adulthood people learn to lie more frequently for many reasons but many such lies are harmless. But the art of lying is refined by the politicians and reaches the apex. The frequency and seriousness of lies are contextual and differ from person to person, but lying is a universal phenomenon with the bottom 1% with zero lies to top 1% with 17 lies per day on average (University of Wisconsin 2021). This is North American statistics; lying is very much a sociocultural behaviour and must vary from country to country and may not be generalisable. Psychologists say that 90 percent of lying is trivial. Lying is a second nature of human beings. But sometimes lying is necessary to prevent a conflict, to bring truce.
What is the truth anyways?
Philosophically speaking truth is defined as a statement of fact, as they are. Then one might ask what is a fact as fact can be manipulated thus making the idea of truth intangible. Be that as it may, let us agree that truth is the state of being authentic, a situation of being genuine without dispute. Our daily chore is surrounded by truth and its nemesis, lie. Truth is what maintains our integrity. Truth matters to us individuals and to society to function, to strengthen social bond and to maintain law and order. But truth can be subjective; this is where the media exploit people’s psychology - for example, occupied land interpreted as disputed land. As we move from physical science to social science the idea of truth can become contextual. Objective truth based on physical science cannot be disputed such as, pure water is transparent. In social science truth can be subjective and a perception or simply a kind of awareness. The importance of truth, especially in the media cannot be overstated.
Nature of truth
People expect a level of playing field in life but in reality, it is not to be. People by nature think of personal benefit first - in sports, businesses, politics, etc. There are rules that put certain people or groups of people in a disadvantaged position. It is the manipulation of a situation, equivalent to bending the truth but not lying. This is what is happening in the mainstream media as well as in the social media surrounding us. In the Court of Law, we see the people in witness stand under the oath say ‘tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth’. We also often hear people say ‘to tell you the truth’. Does it mean that people are largely not telling the truth other than when they are under the oath?
We are surrounded by manipulated news and views promoted by the influential people in the politics of all shades. Media wilfully collaborate with the authorities in promoting lies and deceits, which keeps the people ignorant. It is a grave disservice to the people as they will never be able to understand the real issues as they are presented with sanitised views only. Under such circumstances with the bent truth, the concept of democracy and free speech have become a prank. Having kept people hidden from reality, do the politicians and the media barons still have moral authority? Majority of people are growing up in an environment full of lies and deceits, of which they are completely oblivious to. People must be made aware that every event that happens today has consequences for the future generations.
While the western world continues to complain about the authoritarian crackdown on decedents seeking truth, the politicians in the West continue to promote misinformation and disinformation to hide the truth in their own backyard simply to remain in power. Such spike in the loss of information integrity globally due to disinformation, rumours, and scams has become a serious challenge for the general public. The manipulation of the truth by the politicians and the media has completely polluted the information environment everywhere.
Risk of speaking the truth
Truth is a universal value across all cultures yet, speaking the truth can be dangerous if one is not more tactful than truthful. Being truthful will dismantle prejudices that might go against the popular views of the people in power who often control the administrative apparatus of the government. There is also a serious contradiction in our society; the constitution of the majority of countries allows freedom of speech but it comes with an equally serious risk of being targeted for punishment by the rich and powerful, if the truth contradicts their views. The situation is that some are freer than others to express their views. It also aids in rewriting history. The media is a collaborator in doing what is not to be done to protect free media.
With the emergence of AI with the capacity of cloning everything, the ‘life of truth’ is in serious danger. AI generated texts, visuals and speeches can target groups of people whose social behaviour can be manipulated for the benefit of certain other groups of people. Bending the truth in geopolitics is very dangerous. The alternate facts people publish in various social media easily influence people in changing their views. People surrounded by so many social media with diverse and manipulated news, views and opinions are simply unprepared to fight back.
There are PR firms which specialise in providing propaganda materials, purposefully full of false and misleading information to deceive people. As requested by the governments some of the social media are monitoring the free as well as paid contents of their websites. But it may be impossible to scan page by page and respond to the regulatory authorities. Even if and when such inflammatory lies and deceptive messages are detected, damages may already have been done.
The ultimate victim here will be the truth. There are attempts by governments to regulate the use of AI but given the kind of open society we live in, regulating AI will be extremely complicated, which are the brainchild of the most powerful tech industries in the world.
To avoid any conspiratorial aspect, an article about the truth should be as factual as possible. That ‘media wilfully collaborates with the authorities in promoting lies and deceits, which keeps the people ignorant’ is a generalization that undermines the truth. Not all authorities are promoting lies, and to single out politicians ‘in the West’ for promoting misinformation amounts to disinformation.
ReplyDeleteI recommend the Wikipedia entry on truth.
Thanks for your comment. I should have written 'certain authorities' instead of 'authorities'. My apology. I hope the readers will read this reply to your comment. Ramesh
DeleteThanks for this article, Ramesh. Recent studies and surveys indicate that many of today's political officials who lie, actually BELIEVE that what they are saying is the truth. And, in the US at least, with Fox News (and of course AI) shamelessly spreading these leaders' lies and their own, many ordinary people believe that what they are reading and seeing is true. Hard for me to understand.
ReplyDeleteThanks Paula. A big problem in our society is that the majority of people have no time to think and analyse what they see, hear and read. Many of them are busy with their family, household chores, children, work, etc. To add to this, their brain is totally rewired by the hyper entertaining social media. For many governments uneducated people are best as they can manipulate them easily. This situation is also spreading gradually in other parts of the world. The society and social bonding of the next generations will be totally unrecognisable. Unfortunately, academics and technocrats who are aware of this are unable to influence the governments of their countries. it is all about $$$. Ramesh
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