by Promod Puri
Knowledge, for the most part, is created, developed and distributed.
At this helm, we can discern its traditional outlets, such as books and libraries, newspapers and magazines, radio and television.
However, these sources now have a surging accomplice: the internet and social media.
Authenticity or credibility of traditional sources of knowledge and information was never a significant issue. Whatever was in the print mainly was accepted as accurate. The same was bona fide, with radio and TV broadcasting news or views procured through reputable sources and expertise.
Information and knowledge’s accuracy and purity are now adulterated when attained from online sources. It could be wrong and deceptive in creation and spread through various internet channels.
In fact, the news is manufactured or given some colour and then released through Google, Emails, Twitter, Facebook, and myriad websites.
Lately, the buzzword has been the generation of fake news or information and its circulation. Producing such material is so professionally done that unreal casts into real. Believability is established, and its mass distribution starts rolling.
Producing fake news is a lucrative business that poses a severe threat to authentic information and knowledge. When a fabricated story goes viral on search engines like Google and social media like Facebook, it generates money for phony news manufacturers. The “clicks,” “likes,” and “shares” are the measuring indicators in the booms of this illicit business.
Since the blight of fake news integrates with knowledge gathering, accepting or rejecting pseudo or genuine information depends on our sensitivity and perception, empathy or apathy. Our preferences also determine whether we are kept informed or misinformed while seeking knowledge.
Usually, we select only that information that fits well within our interests, mindset biases, and beliefs.
The production of fake or false news or information, or the creation of a thought, an ideology, or a campaign, and its spread cover most topics and issues, from politics to religion and culture, sciences to medicines, economics to statistics, etc.
Fabricated information supporting a concept, cult, or crusade of morally revolting motives contaminates actual knowledge. It is misleading and sinister. Consequently, information illiteracy spreads.
When a fake story or picture on the internet and its various outlets is released, its authenticity is seldom doubted, especially by those readers who share its viewpoint.
Professional “gatekeepers” like newspaper or magazine editors, who reject, allow, or edit an incoming news story or some viewpoints in traditional institutions, are not the norms in information technology’s receiving and delivery systems.
Our temperaments, beliefs and even our motives are now the “gatekeepers” in the selection and sharing of information.
Fanaticism is created, consolidated, and validated when these attitudes are constantly exposed to fake information or stories. Convictions and extreme beliefs keep the doors of truth and rationality closed.
Promod Puri.com 