No, it is not a multiple choice quiz; No, it is not a medicine expiry test. No, it is not a rapid round talk show. Yes, it is a debate about what to believe and what not to believe in a world where news and views can be fabricated, photoshopped, superimposed, embossed, cut, pasted, mixed and matched, re-graphed, re-designed, re-done; And that also with such dexterity and skill that even the person to whom these news are related to starts doubting the reality of their own facts. Such is the devastating power of the Social Media to flood the visual and mental space of people all across the world. The information highway is ever so overloaded as the competition to break the news and then to make it the most viral news is growing at a frightening pace
Speak a lie so many times that it starts to sound like truth. Technology is so smart that a smart phone carries a smart graphic so well that it gets viewed, shared, tweeted, posted million times and just the frequency of it makes it seem like the truth. This can cause serious damage to many reputations and also lead to dangerous conclusions and decisions. The world of celebrities and the world of public figures has always been subject to this dilemma. Everybody is interested in knowing about the private lives of public figures and thus world over sensationalism has a high reading value. On Facebook many sites have great followings and they have got this following by posting semi-revealed news or hot headlines. These headlines lure people to open the link and read more. Thus when these sites become news breakers they get paid advertisements and make a lot of money.
Half-truth is also fake news. The business of teasing headlines is also consumer attention gaining tactics that provoke but really donot give you the right information. Many of the famous columnists and writers have now outsourced social media teams to create pages that become magnet for hordes of people to subscribe to. These teams offer these columnists/anchors free of cost services to promote their articles and programmes on social media and in return create revenue creating models that give them healthy returns for their efforts. Many Facebook pages use this model successfully to reach millions. Every day they post things like " a very famous actress going through a big mishap or scandal or secret". This is immediately shared by millions more and everybody starts talking about it. At times it becomes so big that electronic media also reports it. The viral news may actually turn out to be nothing sensational or only partially true but it has done its job of getting everybody on the link.
There are many categories of news. Firstly the absolute fake ones that are memes to create humour. These should be treated non-seriously but sometimes they are so clever that they almost deliver the message. Then there are the great copies of famous social media accounts giving "almost real" information. These are deliberately designed to give the impression of being real. Then comes the category of being true but planted to create an impression. This is true about product and service reviews and polls on twitter and Facebook where they make supporters of a particular product flood that page with positivecomments or support a poll and then sway the opinion in favour of a product or a person in a deliberately biased and rigged manner.
That is why it is known as the post-truth world. This word has been added to the dictionary after the world has seen elections being won by Trump, and Brexit vote being polled despite all research showing figures that were indicating defeats for them. The use of alternative facts on social media has been done so cleverly by the people behind these events that the results have been totally opposite to the research. That has led to a big debate on how beneficial or dangerous the social media is to advocate a particular idea that may be more fiction than fact.
This has led Facebook to accept the reality and do some work on authenticity of the information.That is why in a recent interview the Chief Civic Engagement head Samidh Chakarabarti said "In 2016, we at Facebook were far too slow to recognize how bad actors were abusing our platform," he said. "We're working diligently to neutralize these risks now." Facebook is now working to make the news trusted by a verifying system as stated by Facebook head Mark Zuckenberg. The new "trusted sources" ranking, which starts next week, would aim to "make sure the news you see is high quality" and "helps build a sense of common ground" rather than sow division, Zuckerberg said. To do so, he said, Facebook decided to rely on member surveys as the most "objective" way to rank trust in news sources."We could try to make that decision ourselves, but that's not something we're comfortable with," Zuckerberg said. "We considered asking outside experts, which would take the decision out of our hands but would likely not solve the objectivity problem." The new ranking system, he said, would hopefully separate news organizations that are only trusted by their readers or watchers, from ones that are broadly trusted by society.
This is good news as fake news is bad news. The amount of time people in general and youth in particular spend on Facebook makes it imperative for everybody to ensure the distinction between real and unreal stories. While Facebook is working on a system, as users we must not take Facebook on face value. We need to scan, verify, consult, research, to dig the truth. As we know taking things on Facebook value is really devaluing your own intellectual value. andleeb.abbas1@gmail.com