This was supposed to be the age of information, where data was accessible to everyone with a connection. This was supposed to be the great wave of democratisation where citizen journalists, backed up by strong Wikis would ensure that the truth was freely available across the globe. But that’s the trouble with truth, there is no such thing. What you perceive to be true is very difficult to shift from your mind, no matter how well read you are or what income level you have achieved. What you believe to be true is true.
There may not be alternative facts yet there are definitely alternative truths. You just have to pick up a newspaper or social media to see that. Whatever your preference you are sure to find somebody who will agree with you. More worryingly, you will find things which are blatantly not factual.
In the last few weeks I have read that there is going to be a curfew for all pensioners to reduce crime against older people, that if you take money out of your bank above a certain sum you will be investigated by HMRC for potential money laundering, that a charge will soon be introduced on all mobile phones to pay for improvements in infrastructure, that the government is going to give £1,000 to new parents to help with the cost of childcare, that there will be a new sustainability tax on car owners to the tune of £200 and that you won’t be able to switch on your central heating after 9:00 pm.
Of course, none of these can be backed up with government information (but then they wouldn’t be would they?) and can be refuted quite easily, yet they remain the truth to many people, so much so that they are reposted hundreds of thousands of times until, like the viruses they are, they run out of steam and fall by the wayside.
Thai is a worrying trend, where disinformation is deliberately created to spread fear and havoc among the population. Many of these are done for a bit of a laugh, as sort of modern day practical jokes but there are too many for that just to be the cause. There must be producers of disinformation, churning out falsehoods in the knowledge that a few will stick and spread their maliciousness to a point that it is very difficult to know what is fact or not. If there is enough rubbish out there then nothing can be trusted. I don’t know who it is that is producing all of this, yet I have my suspicions.
The age of information was supposed to be a utopia but instead we have arrived at the dystopia of disinformation. Be careful of your own truths.
Thoughts from a Guerrilla Worker 