Page 18 - Seniors Today - August 21 Issue
P. 18
Such WhatsApps get circulated faster
than the good-times stories. It was very
unfortunate that Sushant Singh Rajput
committed suicide but it was unforgiveable
the way television channels hounded his
girlfriend Rhea Chakraborty. Day after
day, news hour after news hour, the poor
girl was subject to extreme humiliation and
convicted of murder even before trial.
Technology will find a solution to spot
Credible knowledge misinformation and quite likely limit the
A small segment of society will find, use, ability to be anonymous, yet technology
and perhaps pay a premium for reliable is operated by human beings who would
information, but outside this group manipulate it to suit their ends. The rising
there will be chaos. Technology will speed, reach and efficiency of the internet
create new challenges, and information will magnify the spread of fake news. We
could be controlled by big business and will be in a world in which there will be
governments to suit themselves. Lack of a widespread invasion of privacy, scams
credible knowledge makes healthy debate and mass manipulation that could cause
difficult, destabilises trust, and divides and disruption in society.
confuses the public. If this is not enough, we are in the midst of
In an election campaign, a lot of fake a cascade of alarming environmental events
news and fabricated political stories caused by climate change – wildfires in
are circulated. Some of them are shared the US, Canada, Australia, Siberia, floods
unknowingly and some intentionally. in Germany, Saudi Arabia, China and
Why do people share such obvious hateful devastating landslides.
stories that pits one group against another? So, is this the collapse of civilisation?
People tend to endorse information that Wikipedia even has a page dedicated to
aligns with their views. As we go further, a list of dates for apocalyptic events. The
we are going to see the rise of a tremendous pandemic shows no sign of abating as the
wave of synthetic media, fake video and lambda variant is discovered in South
fake audio, which is very convincing to America, which is proving resistant to
the human eye. Videographers, stuntmen vaccines. It is a pointer from nature about
and moviemakers have been using these impending doom. It’s ironic that nature
techniques to make punches and kicks and technology, which played a key role in
look more choppy and more aggressive. the development of the human race, could
This is how fake media could pit one become the cause of its destruction.
community against the other. Hate is a
virus that spread faster than any other “Political language is designed to make
disease. There is a WhatsApp message lies sound truthful and murder respectable,
that shows a politician saying that he has a and to give an appearance of solidity to
machine where he will feed potatoes from pure wind.”
one side and get gold from the other side. ― George Orwell
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