- The age of disinformation or of Fake News?
Almost all the dailies these days have put on their front pages news of the new Coronavirus. We have come to know that the virus originated in Wuhan, Hubei, province of China last year. Ever since, the epidemic has been making headlines.
But is this justified? The flu caused by 2019-nCov is now being called an infodemic, instead of an epidemic, which is usually associated with the outbreak of a disease in a population at a certain time. This term is more appropriate because of the huge amounts of unverified information regarding the virus. And this ‘disinformation’ is actually what has been terrifying the public more than the virus itself.
By Sunday, 813 people have been confirmed dead because of 2019-nCov…The WHO recently debunked myths related to the virus like catching it from mail from China or from pets. Disinformation isn’t a new idea. Throughout the centuries it has been used effectively to manipulate the public. Even kings can’t escape it. King Louis XVIII fell victim to this in 1815 when he was complacent regarding Napoleon’s uprising. The poor king eventually had to flee so that the usurper could once again rule (though for a very brief stint this time).
It seems like it’s almost impossible to curb the flow of disinformation but methods can be employed to curtail this vice. The easiest of these is to simply verify the news before we so eagerly forward it to one of our favourite WhatsApp groups
Disinformation is such an effective means of creating a frenzy among the population partly because it is virtually free to concoct and even cheaper to disperse. Once it reaches the ears of masses, the rest of the job is entirely theirs. It reminds one of the game Chinese Whisper. The input is one thing and the output is an entirely different thing altogether! The American President Donald Trump is well known for his political gaffes. With a person like him at the helm of affairs, there is no dearth of sane Democrats who criticise him rationally. But, he actually highlighted the issue of disinformation during his campaign back in 2016. He had however called it ‘fake news’, a combination of words which has since then been trending especially on his personal twitter handle.
I’m not implying that the 2019-nCov is fake news. Just stating that the hype that has been made around it is probably more because it originated in a country that rivals the USA than otherwise. The flights to and from China have been significantly reduced worldwide. Chinese franchises the world over are being shut down. Chinese workers, which provide a huge chunk of their labour forces have been sent packing (for medical reasons). The reports of segregation are at an all-time high.
Perhaps the case surrounding the polio virus in Pakistan is more pertinent from Pakistan’s point of view. The vaccine is subject to a lot of criticism. I was in Swat last week and found polio workers administering the vaccines in places where only 4WD vehicles could reach by virtue of the difficult terrain and knee-deep snow. My driver, a conservative local, told me about the struggles of the polio workers. It’s appalling to know that there is still a lot of resistance against the administration of the vaccine to the infants. The males are mostly denied the drops by the parents. The reason: They have a firm belief that it causes sterility in males. At times they’ll allow their daughters to be given the drops and prevent the same treatment for their sons. Credit disinformation for this… The recent arrest of Manzoor Pashteen has also irked a significant chunk of the population. The aura around the Pashtun Tahafuz Movement is that it is an unpatriotic organization which is being funded from our not-so-friendly neighbours to create unrest in the country by targeting some of the most coveted institutions. When the Chief Justice of the Islamabad Hiigh Court was hearing the bail application of political activists arrested by the Islamabad administration for sedition, the Chief Justice inquired, “How could you question someone’s patriotism?” It’s quite easy. Make allegations and insinuations (read disinformation) against a group that portrays them as anti-state actors, and the rest is history. So far, hearsay is definitely one of the reasons the PTM is being considered a villainous entity.
Living in the 21st century, the spread of information (or disinformation )is just a touch away. Gone are the days when a news was only issued as in writing (Gutenberg’s inventing the printing press in the 15th century was a significant boost to written material after the invention of paper by Tsai Lun in China in 105 AD). Now is the era of social media. And social apps like Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp are the pens and paper of the modern world. We can benefit enormously from these resources.
However the veracity of the content that we come across can never be confirmed. For that we must research the source, which being a cumbersome task, we ignore and just forward the spicy content for others to also get amused. The idiom ‘spread like wildfire’ should be modified a bit to ‘spread like a WhatsApp message’. Technically speaking , it takes fire some time to reach the furthest ends of a forest, whereas a post on social media could have circumambulated the earth almost an infinite times in the same time. It’s very unfortunate that we as a species feed on controversies, rather ‘feast’ on controversies.
The use of disinformation to malign someone has been really going on for some time now. Some even have the ‘resources’ or sources to publish books on the subject! The timing and release of one such book a week prior to the General Elections of 2018 definitely took the political atmosphere by a storm. Needless to say the uncanny timing and publishing of the book dropped a bombshell. The flow of disinformation probably reaches its climax in the weeks prior to elections in Pakistan. All sorts of absurd claims will be made to make someone ineligible or to increase one’s vote bank.
And sadly when this propaganda is being made no care is given to the dignity and honour of the persons. The lower you stoop the higher are the chances the wind will blow in your favour. It seems like it’s almost impossible to curb the flow of disinformation but methods can be employed to curtail this vice. The easiest of these is to simply verify the news before we so eagerly forward it to one of our favourite WhatsApp groups.
Some huge blunders can also be made solely on disinformation. Our neighbour India committed one last year. They awarded their shot-down pilot Abhinandan a Vir Chakra– a gallantry award. He is being revered a hero back home but the ‘ground reality’ is in stark contrast. Had the Indian public done a background check on their hero’s gallantry , they would’ve themselves objected to the desecration of the Vir Chakra….
