From comedy to tragedy

I read an online meme that struck a chord with what we are experiencing as a society today: “Do you all remember, before the internet, that people thought the cause of stupidity was the lack of access to information? Yeah. It wasn’t that.”

In the age of information technology, people are flooded with so much information – a lot of it misinformation and disinformation – their consumption of such has hindered their ability to make informed and sensible decisions.

First, let me distinguish misinformation from disinformation, although the terms are often used interchangeably. Disinformation is “intentional falsehoods spread as news stories or simulated documentary formats,” while misinformation is the “inadvertent or unintentional spread of inaccurate information without malicious intent.”

In my experience, those corrupted by misinformation and disinformation are not only the ignorant or less educated. In fact, in social media, I often encounter highly-educated individuals, some with PhDs to boot, who believe that COVID-19 is a hoax and that Bill Gates is behind an evil plot to inject humanity with a vaccine that has a hidden chip.

The one I knew who has a PhD – which means she is supposedly steeped in the discipline of research – at least has some prudence left in her to send messages privately to her friends, not publicly, about her conspiracy theories.

When you present facts to counter their beliefs based on what they read online, these believers and spreaders of conspiracy theories in turn present you with another set of facts they got from the internet. This used to be funny. Not anymore today.

From comedy to tragedy, conspiracy theories of such groups like QAnon in the US has led to the deadly mob attack at the US Capitol last month. The same conspiracy wingnuts have also been blamed for the seeming vaccine hesitancy among so many people. Blame it on too much information available on social media.

Gone were the days when we used to be intellectually enriched in a forum that features a mediator and where anyone who speaks identify themselves and their affiliation. Now, we engage in crazy and toxic argumentation online with people we have never met, and all these without a referee or mediator.

Free speech is destroying us because we have forgotten that there are limits to free speech. Donald Trump, the former US president, cried foul over Twitter and Facebook shutting him out from their platforms. He said it was a violation of his free speech. He forgot that the limits of free speech include speech that tend to incite people to take violent action. Hours before Twitter and Facebook banned him from posting in their platform, Trump delivered a speech that sent his mob of followers marching to Congress, raring to tear it down.

But Facebook mediating on Trump is an exception rather than the rule. In fact, Apple CEO Tim Cook recently criticized Facebook over its core values, though not naming the social media platform. "If a business is built on misleading users, on data exploitation, on choices that are no choices at all, then it does not deserve our praise. It deserves reform," Cook said, "a social dilemma cannot be allowed to become a social catastrophe."

Cook accused Facebook of manipulating public news consumption and exploiting user data collection in order to serve hyper-targeted ads while simultaneously fueling political polarization and the spread of misinformation. "What are the consequences of prioritizing conspiracy theories and violent incitement simply because of their high rates of engagement? What are the consequences of not just tolerating, but rewarding content that undermines public trust in life-saving vaccinations?” Cook asked.

The fair value of free speech depends on the mediated public space and the establishment of rules to discourage the dissemination of ideas that fail to acknowledge the equal respect that we owe to each other as members of society, wrote Dr. Renato Francisquini in the Brazilian Political Science Review Journal.

If we no longer agree on the basic facts because we value our partisan leanings over the facts, we violate the rules that make free speech worthwhile. We become part of a lie that would sooner or later catch up with us and the rest of society.

Nowhere has this been more clearly shown than in today’s attitude and behavior of some people about the pandemic and against one another.