Ending Misinformation

 Everyone has a say about things today compared to about ten years ago. Look at the comments section of a post on Facebook. For sure, it is flooded and fairly diverse. Social media has provided platform for more voices to be heard and that the right to freedom of expression be added a guarantee. But, we have become more divided. That is probably because when everyone talks, it becomes noisy. And, when it is noisy those voices that need to be heard drown. We are in an era when truth and benefit is drowned by the louder and flamboyant, the eternally beautiful overshadowed by the facade of glamorous ugly, and sincere service by spotlight action. 

Social media has become a platform to advance various interests. Take focus on politics and public health. Political parties which relied much on traditional media--television, newspaper, and radio--was caught off-guard when it failed to realize that the frontier for political battleground was social media. Aside for its reach, the changing demographics have made social media the go-to for the public. Traditional media is expensive and is mostly controlled by oligarchs compared to the free-er landscape of social media. Roll in a catchy campaign, wait, and eventually "the algorithm works". Some political careers have come to a halt, if not ended, due to viral memes and blogs which either have criticised the spotlight action of aspirants--remember the one with the non-standard what-the-h*ll hand gesture of one who played as a traffic enforcer--or exposed their portrait of Dorian Gray. Surely, social media will remain as the major battleground for political wars to come. 

The COVID-19 pandemic is not an exception for divisiveness. Crises are expected to bring people together, after all, it is individual survival if not existence of humanity that is at stake. However, while the scientific community and advocates of public health have used the platform for information dessimation that would benefit and help win the fight against the pandemic, conspiracy theorists as well as antivaxxers and political opportunists have chosen to feed the public with misinformation and propaganda. Though not obvious, these perpetuate distrust and disobedience to interventions, protocols, and other collective efforts to win against COVID-19. Some misdirect focus on issues which could misguide policy such as the cry for #masstesting which is resource inefficient and according to a The Lancet article has only 2% effectiveness. Now that vaccines for COVID-19 are beginning to roll-out, videos are making rounds on Messenger advancing the interests of antivaxxers--an assault to one of the weapons to end this pandemic and save lives. 

Social media has provided more accessibility to information. And in return, today's society can be considered more well-read than ever before. Better access to information should breed a well-informed and better-equipped society which use gained knowledge to generate a new one and create a better society that is working towards the common welfare of each individual. However, it appears that it has created more division due to unacceptable mind-conditioning and other forms of manipulation that benefit the few, particularly those who are hungry for control, wealth, and power. 

The problem lies with critical thinking. More access to information should enable one to develop this very essential skill of the social media era. One should be able to sieve through sugar-coated, malicious, and fake information. Otherwise, they will end up believing everything they see or read--the initial step how one enters the chain of misinformation- and fake news-mongering.  "Think before you click" is the only antidote. When one stops to think and process what they have read or seen, they start to ask questions which should end up with "is this worthy/beneficial to share?". After all, it takes one misinformed to recruit a village of misinformed netizens. 

Ending misinformation should be the responsibility of everyone if we wish social media to be a tool for collective progress around the globe. We should critically appraise information if it is worthy to share. We should always examine ourselves if we have become a conduit of negative and non-beneficial propaganda. The only way for truth, eternal beauty, and sincere service to win is through our exercise of responsibility over things that we see and read on social media.