Keeping Off the Fake News and Misinformation

By

One of the greatest ethical and epistemic responsibilities of each person in the current times is to keep themselves away from fake news and misinformation. Keeping guard against it will help us protect our whole personality and how we behave towards our fellow beings. How we deal with it underpins the projection of our social behaviour.

As a source of knowledge, information, misinformation or disinformation, the news which is fed to us through TV sets and web portals is of the testimonial nature. It involves someone or something conveying it by telling, which can take different forms including broadcasting and writing. In this regard, two human instincts play an important role when it comes to dealing with such sources, namely the principle of veracity and the principle of credulity. To put them simply, these two principles say that we humans in normal circumstances often tend to tell truth and we tend to believe what other people tell us; there’s a disposition towards truthfulness and trustfulness on our part. However, only a moment’s reflection suffices to reveal their ambivalent nature. Given their instinctual nature, they easily become vicious tool of spreading rumours, misinformation and fake news. It doesn’t take too much effort to turn truthfulness into deceitfulness and trustfulness into gullibility. Since each of us is born with these two instincts, every one of us is morally responsible to keep off the fake news, rumours or any kind of misinformation and prevent it from spreading.

Now the question is, what are the methods and tools we can use to ward off fake news and misinformation? Do we have to use technological tools or certain measures on our part will do? I believe we have to first educate and train ourselves in this matter. Technology-based tools in themselves will be ineffective as long as we ourselves do not use our innate faculties properly.  In the end responsibility lies in every individual who’s exposed to any kind of news or information. And it doesn’t take too much to equip ourselves with such human tools as to keep us protected from any kind of fake news and misinformation. In this connection, there’s a need of an attitude that one must develop in oneself, and which should get reflected in us as being a little cautious, inquisitive and skeptic.

Donald A. Barclay, the author of the book Fake News, Propaganda and Plain Old Lies, has come up with a set of nine essential questions, each of which has a list of sub-questions which must be asked in order to evaluate any information. I will not list down all of those nine questions here, but a few are very important to be commented upon. These have to do with the creation, dissemination and temporal relevance of information. Whenever you come across any news or information, ask who created it. Asking such question involves getting to know the character and credibility of the author, making sure whoever has created the information under discussion is identifiable and possesses required expertise to write or speak on whatever the content is. Then look for the means which the author has used to publish this information. Following Barclay, I’ll call this means publisher. Publisher is the conduit through which information reaches the public. So it’s as important an element as the information and author themselves. It’s through publishing that information becomes news. Like the author, the publisher must be evaluated along the two axes of character and credibility. In addition, look for the biases and conflict of interests which might be there disguised under the sensational headlines. Another important question to be asked is related to the date and time of information. I have often seen people on social media sharing outdated posts and news articles. Some people even share posts containing requests for monetary aids and blood donations which are years old. Similarly some old news or piece of information, which has completely lost its relevance, is spread without paying any attention to the date of its creation.

Contemporary philosopher Nicholas Rescher says that trusting someone’s information is like extending them credit. When they prove unworthy of it, stop giving it. Now in order not to lose our truthfulness and not to be in debt of ignorance ever, these are some of the questions which we on human level are capable of asking: Who created the information? Who published the information? How old is the information? They are the tools to fight ignorance and deceit.

Greater Kashmir

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Of Her

By
Oft they say, Tell us more of her. Again do I narrate the stories bristled with miracles. How faith healers seek her to be healed. How autumn searches for her the whole year To be bidden come with autumnal beauty. How the glimpse of her countenance Humiliates the hubris of the Sun. How the Earth is blessed as she treads over. (23-May-2016)
Read more

On the Trinity

By
One of the twelve principles of intellectual conduct that T. Edward Damer, a contemporary philosopher, has espoused is called the principle of charity. He discusses it in his brilliantly written textbook called Attacking Faulty Reasoning published by Wadsworth Cengage Learning. The principle of charity teaches us that we should comprehend and reformulate the opponent’s argument as honestly as they would like us to, and we should allow them to amend it in case they impugn its reformulation. Taking the principle of charity as our guiding principle, I intend to very briefly talk about the doctrine of the Trinity, the Christian conception of God. So, let's begin. The first and most important thing to be cleared in this regard is that Christianity is, or at least claims to be, a monotheistic religion. They don't believe in three gods. Just like Jews and Muslims, they believe in only One God. However, the nature of Christian God is diametrically different from their cousins. It...
Read more

Seeking Refuge

By
When the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) was founded in 1950 in the wake of death and destruction wreaked by World War Two, it was expected to operate for three years and then be dissolved. Enter 2022, it’s still at work, with its need felt more than ever. Its role has over the years expanded and its Convention has been growing in its formulations, definitions and clauses. As the refugee crisis has risen dramatically over the past few decades, it’s essential that we have a clear understanding of different aspects and terms involved in the discourse surrounding it, including the number of people who are affected by this crisis, and what’s at stake. There are around 90 million people the world over who have been displaced from their own homeland. Among these 90 million people, 27.1 million are officially recorded as refugees and almost half of them are children. The detailed statistics regarding the refugee crisis can be had on the UNHCR website. We must be invariab...
Read more