The economy of misinformation!

 

Some fascinating stories in circulation on the web today.

• Earth is flat.

• 'Moon landing' was a conspiracy, it never happened.

• Herbs cure COVID19.

• Homosexuality is a disorder and it can be cured by Yoga.

• Our ‘race’ is the best.

• 'Motivation and passion' that is all that one needs to succeed in life.

All of the above is just plain untrue, misleading and utter bullshit; but you know what? You can find ‘information’, ‘social media posts’ and ‘opinions’ masquerading as facts - supporting each of these bizarre theories on the internet. Not one, not two but millions upon millions of carefully crafted digital stories backing each of these salacious claims, not only exist but are only a recommendation away. Planted delicately in the way of your attention to make you stop, scroll, consume and click. The currency of your attention is what the spreaders of the misinformation are gunning for. These exist because vested interests are willing to pay for them from their endless pool of resources.

The economy of misinformation is HUGE, estimated at 250 billion USD, globally!

Misinformation, slander and scandals; sell like hotcakes.

Take a moment to imagine a group of people, who were born and brought up on these posts. Consider that they have lived their entire life surrounded by these details, would they ever accept contrasting information worthy of their attention? When they go on to the world wide web and search, they find millions who hold the same beliefs; what do they take away from it? That they are not alone and that there is no way, so many people can be wrong about something, which they believe to be true. So it must be true, the earth is indeed flat and to support that they have emphatic evidence right in front of their eyes, the ground below their feet is indeed flat; so how can the claim that earth is flat be untrue?

While you process that, let me present a thought exercise: look at all the things that you may have acquired in the last 2 years or so. List everything down, every item and then try to trace back, to the original instinct that got you to buy them. What was it? Did any form of advertisement, play a part?

Let me bring the third case into the mix; list down the last ten digital altercation that you may have had with others on various internet-based mediums - social media, messengers, video chat forums and others. What caused those brawls actually? What formed the basis of your opinions, the cause that you stood for? Was it in any way bolstered by what others expressed in solidarity with your views on the matter on the digital platform, that you frequent?

If yes, then you’ve been played with.

You’ve been manipulated by someone who devilishly weaponised the weaknesses of your mind, your ignorance; to further their own cause. They have benefited from the blind spots of your psychology, your behavioural glitches to make money out of your attention. How do you like the idea?

The illusion of knowledge, a false feeling of confidence and sense of community and belonging that these digital excursions (Social media) offer in exchange for time spend on the medium- draws people to them, irresistibly.

Let's take another case.

Imagine an ignorant but decent soul playing a silent spectator in an argumentative exchange going wild on a Whatsapp group that he is a part of, in which he found the group proposing 'earth is flat' presenting colourful reasons for it being the truth. In all honesty, with the sole objective of finding facts he launches youtube and types, "Earth is flat". Youtube returns the man, a ton of videos on that topic. He watches to one, and then moves on to the other and then to the next. After 2 hours of viewing different people eloquently presenting to an HD camera the fact that 'earth is flat' in a well-lit frame, he is confident. In his mind, he has the 'Knowledge' that he needs. He rages back to the group with his newly acquired 'intel and confidence' adds weight on to the side of the argument that purposed that 'earth is flat'. A few of these debates later the man now is a convert, an activist of the cause of dispelling every other version of the earth, circulating faster than earth is rotating on its axis. He considers it his responsibility to put things to record now.

A bubble of sorts is created in which he is trapped for eternity, an expansive universe in which he magically finds different people from different parts of the world who think exactly as he does? It is nothing but smart algorithms pushing on the side of conformance bias.

The principle to note in internet-based knowledge gathering and socialising exercises is that when you find people echoing your thoughts it does not always mean that what you are thinking is the right thing to think, it only means that like you the other people have also been subjected to the same stimulus and therefore they are reacting in a predictable way.

Confirmation is not the same as corroboration, more people saying the same thing does not make it right.

Consider this, let’s say your name is “Lav Kush” and a million people start calling you “Rohan” all of them addressing you by the wrong name at the same time and in a continuous and consistent manner; imagine 10 more people get added to that group of a million people who are calling you by a wrong name. What is the most likely name they are going to think you have? Lav Kush or Rohan? You know they would inadvertently add their voice to the building chorus of “Rohan”. "Rohan" is a fictitious name for you but it is a fact for those million others. Except that the million people, in this case, are simply wrong, but they are united in their misinformation and that makes the cumulative choristers appear much stronger than what is actually the right information - "Lav Kush".

This is how 'spread' of misinformation works.

The other question now is; when people have such an effective and powerful tool in their reach why do they not spread the right information? Are they inherently evil people? Why does it always have to be the wrong use of the tech? What sense does it make to use the tool wrongfully for indecent purposes? Why would someone be so taken up by the cause of spreading misinformation? These are valid questions. The answer is that - the truth is always ‘mundane’ and uninteresting because it does not dress up to impress it just puts clothes on.

Let me present to you two flavours of the same story, to further the argument.

The First Version: Iqbal is a hardworking student. He commits himself to routine and follows it through. He studies 6 hours a day, every day and then sleeps 8 hours a day, every day. He eats home-cooked meals most of the times. With sustained preparation, he cleared the prestigious UPSC entrance examination.

The second version: Iqbal was a bad student, he used to get into fights and all sorts of funny stuff back in school. His teachers and family members were equally worried about the prospects of his future. One day, while strolling back from school he met a sage who gave him a miracle filled sweet, he ate it and from that day onwards he was transformed. He started studying 16 hours a day, he would not even need to sleep for more than 4 hours a day and he constantly just kept on working. As a result, he cracked the prestigious UPSC entrance examination.

Both versions of the story offer the same outcome “Iqbal cleared the prestigious UPSC entrance examination” but which one do you think will sell more? First or second? We know the answer is going to be second.

Why?

The second story, forces leading questions on to the readers. Has a hint of mystery in it, waiting to be unravelled, some like these.

•Are miracles possible?

•Sages have transformative capabilities.

•Who was this sage, could we also seek his blessing?

•16 hours of study is possible, can be tried out. All of those who do not put in those kinds of hours are stupid nincompoops and are bound to fail.

•Sleep is not important at all; 4 hours is just about fine.

The first one, will not get anyone excited, it is as boring as a bowl of khichri. It is not exciting and that is enough to drive people away from it. But we can't say the same thing for the 2nd version, which appears straight from the movies.

That is how the business of fake news, conspiracy theories and propagandist narratives work.

It plants juicy connivance at the heart of an earthly event to get people interested, in the story. Constant and colourful reinforcement is supplied. Different people use this hunger (vulnerability of the human mind) for mystery in different forms.

Tech giants - Deploy powerful and pervasive algorithms to supply an abundance, the never-ending flow of content to satiated our senses by confirming to our beliefs, trapping us in our own bubble and yet keeping us hungry, at the same time by furnishing a variety of overproduced agenda-driven content, often for free. They grow audiences by popularising biases which they monetise for their economic gains. They sell our attention to corporations that are willing to place advertisements of their products somewhere in the content for us to consume and then get persuaded to buy.

Political parties use it to generate narratives that suit their politics. They create grand distractions to blind people of real issues/shield their failures. False enemies are erected so that people remain busy fighting them while they make the hay. Accountability is abdicated by confusing public consciences in an endless maze. News organisation and social media firms are paid to do the job. We are witnessing one right now in the country. We've become the 2nd most infected with COVID19 as a country, China is walking over our toes, the economy has plunged by 24%, and joblessness is at its peak and all we are being offered is scandalous collusion of an actor who died.

Corporations - They plug their products where the eyeballs are to boost growth prospects. You can’t buy a product that you have not seen or heard about. So wherever most people are listening becomes the essential place for organisations to advertise. They willingly pay the tech giants for creating these vast networks of disbelieves and misinformation appearing as reality and truth.

Regular people - They have a smartphone with a cheap data connection and nothing better to do with their time. So they hog on it, endlessly. Consumption becomes the easiest and effortless way to spend time.

Very few people have actually studied psychology and human behaviour well enough to avoid falling in these traps as a result they allow platforms to trade their attention for their profit. In the end, capital wins because these spaces are made available to the highest bidder; truth does not matter as much as confirmation bias does. Ordinary users unknowingly grow these monsters by feeding them with their attention. For short term pleasure, they lose long term control. Are you willing to squander your senses to the chorale around you? If not then, delete your social media accounts right now, limit your news consumption (preferably to print). Use your time productively in something useful, something constructive. You'll be better served.

I’m linking my article on digital minimalism, here for you to see the ways in which you can shield yourself from the damage the internet can do to you.

Good luck and stay safe.

Raw Wisdom

I admire, Narendra Modi, the politician, a lot more than Modi the PM or Modi the wannabe statesman. You can like him for who he is, the ideas he represents or hate him for the very reasons but you certainly can’t ignore his strong presence. With his bag of good, bad & ugly messages he has dominated the Indian mindset, discussion rooms and aspirations in ways which are not easy to achieve for any politician. Both his admirers and adversaries draw his parallels with the Iron lady, Ms Indira Gandhi, but I will go on to say that his clutches over what can be seen, read and heard is a tad bit stronger than that of the lady, who on her own, decided to break Pakistan into two. People who are elder to me and have active memories of her days may disagree with me and I’d happily concede to them as I was only born the year she was assassinated. I was nearly 4 months old on the day of her killing. So my reading of her is from books, news articles and a few youtube videos that exist today. Indira Gandhi has attracted a disproportionate amount of literature given her audacious and most brazen emergency decision. People who like reading and knowing the political history of India will have to read about her extensively and so I had to without much choice. If you happen to be a Modi supporter, do not judge me for I learned more about Congress than I did about BJP/RSS, do bear with me and note that there is actually more to read about them than your party. But do not be disappointed you have a man now who would in very many ways leave her behind when it comes to being studied, heard and talked about. That is our very own Modi!


The fate of India has already been sealed, given the fact that we’ve come close to the end of the polling, as I type this article people are making their voices heard in the 6th phase of a long election season. On the 23rd the counting will reveal, people’s desire. Who will be sworn in may require additional juggling, though, should no party win a clear majority on its own, which is very likely. At this point, we do not know, at least, I do not. In a democratic setup, politics becomes essential, everything that gets done, happens within the policy framework. Therefore it is greatly necessary for people to participate, the mood of the nation, gets built by these deliberations. India is a complex country to govern, from its maddening geographical extent to mind-boggling cultural and ethnic diversity, everything about us is unparalleled. And therefore, whether we like it or not, no one Idea can appeal to all Indians equally. We’re the fastest growing economy for over 8 years now, the top tier in the developing world. At the same time, we’re also a country that hasn’t effectively cracked bread and butter, health and sanitation, education and employment, code, at a policy framework level. A vast majority of our country does not have access to clean drinking water, a roof over their heads or unpolluted air to breathe. We’re still breeding at a dull-witted rate, 1.3 bn. already and counting. The caste system is still prevalent, the girl child is discriminated against, untouchability is still a consistent Idea in many parts of the country. The story for gender diversity is not a happy one either, women empowerment is still a fancy urban design. Male dominance and majoritarianism have costed us in purely economic terms about 38% of our net worth as a country (estimation is from an economist article); if we had succeeded in creating a society that values both the genders equally, we would have been 38% stronger and more prosperous: perhaps a developed nation too.

Are these issues getting discussed in the political addresses? The clear and honest answer is a no! Yes, there have been sporadic talks and half-hearted efforts have also been made to address some of the issues that I have listed above, but every well-intentioned man/women, when faced with the challenge of the election, forgets, everything and starts playing to the gallery. And then idealism and reforms take a back seat. Elected sitting PM of world's largest democracy says “ Main ati pichri jati ka hu”, “main pathan hu, etc : What does it say about the prime minister and more than him what does it say about we the people? If we did not care about caste would he flaunt it? That is the question that Indian people should ask themselves. In most elections, the agenda gets set by the shortcomings of the incumbent, mainly; economic failures and other social events that can drag those in office in poor light, more or less. This election has been different though, the agenda was not set by the opposition, they did try but couldn’t simply match the surround sound that Modi & Shah led BJP built around things that do not matter in our everyday life. The election campaign of 2019 is not so much about the content or the character but reach and proliferation. On the one side, you have the mighty Modi who seems to have the wealth of the world to spray on every medium of communication available, from Radio to 24*7 television, to internet powered content on social media, mobile apps, the print publication and even movies. In fact for the first time, we saw, how movies of a certain popular Canadian actor with a famous Hindi name in the last five years delivered several beautiful Bollywood hits to further the communication objective of the ruling party. It did not stop there, the same prince of the Tinseltown also interviewed the PM in an apolitical exchange, which soon was trending on youtube. Video ads and television commercials existed for a long time and they continued in this election as well. It is anyone’s guess that the money spent on publicity crossed the permissible limit within minutes of the campaign.

What has therefore been the theme of the campaign of  2019 elections? Opposition lingered in setting the narrative, they too have tried, but nothing even close to the spectacle that Narendra managed. Opposition leaders were also airborne for a lot of their election travel, gave interviews and had articles written on their areas of interest but they simply did not get the airtime that they should have in the mainstream media. I can’t with certainty say that they would still manage to create a decent electoral fortune for themselves or will they suffer, even more! Realities of this election do match with a few things that have been tried in the past with a varying degree of success, let’s look at some the key items to understand how political event management has been done in this election.

Election Theme setting: India shinning from the past made its grand entry in the form of “Main Bhi Chowkidar”: Quite an event, very well managed, people flocked in high numbers to express their solidarity with the idea. Social Media name edits, numerous quotes, +ve memes and what not. The event did cross the line, in some sense, because it had a little portion towards the end trying to emulate a war scene to underscore the surgical strike bravado. Nevertheless, for the supporters, it deserved Oscars. Adversaries of BJP and Modi did use it to base, ‘Chowkidar chor hain’ slogan, that too seems to resonate with people. It upset the Apex court though.

Untruth the new mainstream: Not too long ago, when Indian prime minister spoke, people apprehended with respect, sincerity and attention. There has not been a history of incidents in the past, in which the PM in his official capacity has said things which were found incorrect. This rule, however, had started growing weak and brittle with UPA2’s excessive strains, there is no way it could have lifted the heavy weight of the strong man Modi, it shattered after 2014. As a result of which all kinds of bizarre politically motivated lies were spoken with incredible confidence and poise. Here a few:

#1  At a campaign rally in Bangalore on April 13, 2019, Modi deployed his favourite oratorical tool, the rhetorical question. “Was there even a single terrorist attack on the country when your chowkidar was on duty?” ( The wire)

& Then he talks about Pulwama and asks for votes, the contradiction wasn’t spaced even a few lines apart.

#2

These are just a few samples you can look up this website https://www.modilies.in/ it does an excellent job of fact-checking the PM.

Fact-checking the PM wasn't an idea that existed before Modi in the prominence that it does now. With his kind of resources, if he is making such blunders one can only imagine how hollow must be the academic grasp of the PM. There is another theory that suggests that these willful slip-ups were engaged in to mislead generally uninformed crowd. Modi made the lack of education among ordinary Indian a tool to swing emotions.

Discrediting dissent and bunking questions: The PM did not take one question from the press in a free unscripted conference, in fact, in his entire tenure, there was no press conference, none at all. This in itself is proof of the fact that in his world he doesn’t see himself accountable to anyone. He is his own man. He has however managed to effectively tame a vast majority of Indian media, who blush and blossom when they ask him questions like the below.


App thakte khyun nahiApke paas batua hain kyaKon sa tonic lete hainEk fakiri hain app me60 mahine me itna kuch kiya hain, itna hua hain
He agrees to answer if questions have the potential of adding to his propaganda of establishing himself as larger than life, the perfect man to lead image. His party workers and ministers have for long been suggesting those who have committed the sin of being critical of the PM to leave for Pakistan. Disagreeing with his idea is being anti-national. In the minds of his supporters, Modi is the nation, much like Indira use to be to her patrons. Urban Naxal, Lutyen, Tukre Tukre Gang, Award Wapsi gang: are the phrases that PM and his close confidants use for those who have expressed serious concern over the macho, majoritarian, divided and polarised India that he wants to create to keep his electability intact. Rejecting dissent and rebuking questions have now graduated to discrediting institution :about 4 yrs ago when Time Magazine published Modi’s interview lauding his plans; BJP supporters jumped in excitement, for them it was a national pride, today when the same prestigious publication is calling Modi’s bluff out in the open, they find the magazine frivolous! There is an army defending his unscientific and even plain stupid comments; like the one that he has made on how he thought clouds would help the air strike move undetected from the radars etc. People latch on and give all kinds of arguments to save the face of the supreme leader.

The great Indian political circus will end on the 23rd hopefully with a mandate that gives Mr Modi some solitary time and much-needed rest but I’m afraid the trend that he has set in will continue and get worse in days to come. The country that has been terribly polarised will have to make a lot of effort, burn a lot of steam, to come together again. Healing is going to be effort-intensive. In times like these, I miss the sanity that Bapu has professed in his writings.

Argumentative and enthusiastic Indians will move from elections to cricket, patiently and in hope, reel under the adventure of whichever side that wins 2019 because they know that they will get to choose again in another 5 yrs.

With that let me end this, if you haven’t voted still, do so!