Many have argued that for years, digital giants have grown too big and too powerful, threatening public interest. Now the leaders of technology recognise the corrosive impact and have started working to fix the digital privacy problem. Are they doing enough to protect our digital rights?
In fact, the mission of social media is to allow people to share things and to make the world more open and connected as we thought, but that is not necessarily what happened. For most people, it is the same technology that has revolutionised lives which is now increasingly controlling us, and influencing our lives in unknowable ways.
Fake news thriving in the media is presenting a threat to our democratic societies. The perpetuation of false facts and distortions is afflicting countries around the world. Governments from Paris to Prague and New York to New Delhi are concerned about fake news. It misleads, exploits, manipulates and polarises the society and pulls cultures further apart by sowing mistrust and animosity among people. It is a potent scourge that is ravaging nearly every society and is corroding our lives.
Often, public discourse is being overtaken by a cascade of lies, including the highest political offices and a sizable number of citizens are prepared to consume such information uncritically. We are churning out fake news on an industrial scale; it seems that while manufacturing is down, only fake news factories are booming. While agriculture output is low, that of troll farms are high. We run the risk of creating parallel societies in which some people are not aware of the real issues facing the world. Has fake news created a cynical society where people have started distrusting authority, neglecting views and their duties in life?
Is this distorted worldview what we want in our increasingly interconnected world? Why does fake news exist? Is it because people have nothing better to do with their time? So the challenge now is to craft proper legislation for the digital age. A new system of safeguards is needed to combat the stream of falsehood, that corrodes a digitalised world, and otherwise we cannot describe it as liberating, well connected and empowering. Until we wisen up, fake news will never stop because it preys on our own ignorance and biases. I would like to live in a functioning society. Wouldn’t you?
-The reader is a former teacher and resident of Dubai.
