Fake News: Impact of an Untold Pandemic

Coronavirus is not the only pandemic of whose traces our future generations will be dealing with, but it will be accursed with the pandemic of fake news too, which by then would have intensified into an evil force capable of haunting consequences. Some would argue that it already has. This is also a viral infection, where the active caseload has, ever since its inception, witnessed an unyielding uptick, where recoveries are barely a handful and deaths are only climbing, day by day.

In this time of new gadgets, bulldozing into an already overflowing market, the aspects to our lives are not just increasing, they are exponentially doing so. Before the dawn of social media and the mindless obsession over likes, tweets, and posts, that serve to be these newly added aspects, life was much simpler to live. People had simpler motives. Even evil was not difficult to comprehend. 

The digital age comes with a compelling entrée of heavy artillery and weaponry along with all tools needed to defend ourselves and protect others too, from the various disasters that be. In other words, an inventory of an army preparing for war. This is the power of social media and it can hasten a conflict of any degree of severity or even throw states into upheaval, with that power. There is proof of this madness.

Social media being used as a tool to help people, should not cloud the fact that it is on a daily basis being maliciously used to inject into the fragile bedrock of our society, intense hate, anger, and confusion. The most toxic weapon used for doing this is fake news. Incidentally, we live in an era of high emotions, easily swayed by this "news". There are real-life incidents to back this claim.

So how does fake news work? How does it affect us?

The structure of fake news is apparent in its intricacies; every fake tweet, headline or article is carefully tailored. The fabric is chosen prudently and the tailor, but natural, has a wicked intent. An intent to mislead unsuspecting audiences and create a lasting atmosphere of doubt and uncertainty around undeniable facts. The aim is to compromise first impressions and exact just the right amount of manipulation, scrupulously. It won't even matter if the word is out on the falsity of this news. The required amount of damage has already been inflicted by the transient proliferation of it.

Behold, the recipe for fake news! Now, the aforementioned formula will simply have to be applied to every local news providing functionary, and eventually, when people will be habituated to these unending imaginings, start normalizing and legitimizing it, brainwashing on a scale hitherto unrivalled, would have been accomplished. The citizenry can be made to believe absolutely anything; that night is day, bad is good or poison is a cure. At the onset of this infection, fake news will gaslight its hosts, it will debilitate our scientific temper and critical thinking and once the control is absolute, it will hijack our emotions. It will dictate to us, what to feel, for whom, when, and how, or if we should feel at all. It will exhort untoward actions.

The entirety of our news ecosystem is riddled with exactly this malaise. 

It is troubling to imagine just how many people, who, once exposed to fake news actually find out that what they'd read on some shady Facebook account about a certain public figure was actually fake. How many, to this day, still chat with their friends casually mentioning the 4-year-old hoax they heard from someone who is a cousin of a guy who read it on Twitter, in their conversation?

The figures (like many others, it seems) are unknown, yet the thought is unsettling. 

What of such people, who do not have the resource to find out that what they had read on social media was never true? They have already begun to make prejudiced notion after notion, all based on and prompted by these carefully orchestrated falsehoods, that flash on their screens 24x7. Again, the damage is done and it is writ large for anyone to see. Too little too late. 

They are expectedly oblivious to the urgent need of being familiar with facts and the plague of misinformation that continues to fester in their quaint localities, much less fact-checking websites. I wonder who will educate them on the credibility of news sources or is there any saving for them, at all?

While we, the fortunate folk are safe from being taken advantage of, by this hideous entity, there is an economically backward class, who, in their blissful ignorance, fall prey to fake news and it is this class that is particularly hard hit. As always, the underprivileged are the first batch of victims.

This community of outlets that distribute this goulash of nonsense, is well-knit. They lack the spine, but interestingly enough, have a solid foundation of funds. As long as they continue to thrive, fake news will exist and we will be at perpetual risk of being hijacked, like many other ill-fated individuals who already have.

To solve this crisis, the principled institutions of our world must unleash a planned clampdown on this evil hub, that seeks to annihilate civil liberties and toxify the socio-political harmony as we know it. It must serve to demolish these outposts, while we simultaneously support and campaign to do so. We must cleanse of our social media platforms this decaying manure of post-truth and alternate facts.

The young generation of today must keep their head held high as they take off into an age of mistrust and misfortunes; poised to manifest within their collective conscience, a will to pull out of the powerful blizzard that is untruths and sensationalisms. 

Envenomed nonsense that masquerades as news, can never be titled as news. It is poison. Then again, you've already been convinced that poison is a cure, so one day or another, you'll take a sip anyway.