Diary

My generation had diaries. Unlike today’s blogs and social media posts, our diaries were kept under lock and key. 

The diary was not just a record of what we did for the day, but a repository of our innermost thoughts and feelings. In my case, I like to think it brought clarity to youthful confusion and helped me improve my writing.

Once a diary was filled out I would go over what I had written. Almost always I would find some cringe-worthy entries there. We outgrow ideas, we outgrow teenage crushes, we get over our anger and time heals heartbreak. Always, I would find entries in my diary that I would regret or find embarrassing if ever they were made public. After some time I would burn the diary even as I maintained a new one. None of my diaries has survived. I stopped keeping one when I began working as a journalist.

Today kids – and many adults – have swung to the other end of the pendulum, wanting the whole world to see what they’re doing, read their most intimate thoughts, and even see everything that they’re eating. The more adventurous even post their naked photos online for the world to see.

I’m all for transparency, whether in governance or personal relationships, but I will never understand this urge to give up privacy. It must be a generational thing.

Given the nature of information and communication technology, those who do not guard their privacy should be prepared to have it invaded. Technology has allowed people to give full rein to voyeurism. The anonymity of digital communication also allows people to unleash all the nastiness and malice that they keep in check in face-to-face conversation.

People should bear this in mind if they enjoy being on social media. Anonymity also allows the lack of accountability for whatever information is disseminated digitally. So be prepared for a lot of disinformation, black propaganda, bullying and other forms of harassment.

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This is hardly new. My favorite writer, Manong Frankie Sionil Jose, now in his 90s, wrote decades ago about purveyors of what we now describe as fake news.

Trolls have also been around for ages. Before the age of smartphones and personal computers, I often received piles of letters by snail mail, containing similar opinions on controversial issues or criticism of the same public figure. “White papers” were also circulated regularly, brimming with malice and containing disinformation woven into accurate information, attacking mostly politicians.

The choice of words rivaled the nastiness of today’s commentaries on digital platforms. Black propaganda materials in the past were so crude the envelopes, addresses and typewriter fonts were strikingly similar. Today the crudeness in content has remained, but technology has allowed the dissemination at warp speed to reach a much broader audience.

This is presuming that people have time to read all that stuff floating around in cyberspace.

Some years ago a guy who left journalism to work in the media bureau of a prominent politician told me that they had two or three persons manning computers in their office. He said they would screen all stories that mentioned the name of their principal and email comments on each story, pretending to be ordinary readers. It was not unusual to heap verbal abuse on critics, he admitted.

The troll work was accompanied by smear jobs on critics and rival politicians, written in ink on paper.

Such dirty tricks were carried out by all the major political parties especially when election campaigns approached. Squid tactics against all his rivals surely contributed to the downfall of a man who must have been lusting for the presidency since reaching adulthood.

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Last year at the annual meeting of the Global Editors’ Network in Vienna, Facebook executives admitted to representatives of mostly traditional mass media that because of the proliferation of fake news and trolls, Facebook use was going down. Instead people including avid social media users were increasingly going to the online or digital platforms of established media organizations such as The New York Times for reliable news. Because of this, the Facebook executives told us they were working out partnerships with traditional media for news and related content. 

The driving consideration, we were told, was reliability of the news, including the accountability that goes with having a story bearing the real name of the writer. No need to compel “responsibility” in the exercise of press freedom here, through a constitutional amendment. All rights must be exercised responsibly. If journalists are irresponsible in their writing, most countries have rules on libel and defamation. Legislation is even keeping up with technology; complaints for cyber libel have been filed in court.

What if the head of government himself is spreading fake news, through twitter or his minions in his communications team? It’s called lying or perhaps deliberate kuryente or a bum steer, or why not, an honest mistake, and they can be censured for it.

As for trolls unleashed by the government against its critics, there must be existing laws that can be applied while legislators fine-tune the rules and coordinate with tech experts on ways of tracing anonymous and malicious messages. This technology is still evolving, but with even social media giants feeling threatened by the proliferation of fake news, perhaps one day in the near future, cyberspace will lose much of its anonymity. Maybe the Israelis are on the way to perfecting the technology. The loss of anonymity may compel a level of civility in the digital dissemination of messages.

And with all these discussions on fake news and trolls, perhaps some people, kids in particular, might realize the value of keeping at least some of their private thoughts private. Some thoughts deserve to be kept under lock and key.