Too much information?
With so much technology and with us
being so connected we now are being hit with waves of information from every
front, in the university our professors share what they know, we have conversations
with our friends and family, and now with social media even memes are transmitting
information and news in their own way, and there’s no way to stop and process everything
we read or hear, so how do we know what’s true and what are fake news? there is
a lot of disinformation out there we need to be able to filter it. One example
of this is the WhatsApp audios that circulate, for me, I get them all the time
in my family group chat and by now after so many years of having these, I just
take everything coming through that channel as false.
Fake news have been a problem for
many years, however now with covid this is even more worrying, people use these
more and the repercussions are many, at the beginning of the pandemic there was
a message that was sent stating that people from Venezuela could receive aid if
they showed up at a set location, dozens of people desperate because they could
not work, were of course going to show up which during a pandemic can be very
dangerous due to contagion. Not acknowledging the seriousness of the situation
can bring dangerous repercussions, there are people that believe that the virus
is a Hoax and is just a way for the government to control us, that there is a big scheme to kill the elders, many doctors have been threatened because of
this, people go out without masks as a manner of stating a point and this has
become a big issue worldwide, waves of different movements have surfaced in the
U.S, U.K and the European Union. It is stated by AP news that “COVID-19
conspiracy theories persist by providing a false sense of empowerment… they
give the believer a feeling of control in a situation that otherwise seems
random or frightening.” Which is a normal human response, however, we must be
held accountable on our actions, right now people are dying, and to act correctly
we need to have the right information, I’m not saying we should just take what
the main media says as absolute truth, on the contrary, we should look into
their arguments, what are their sources, does it make sense? However, this can
become very tiring and even impossible to do every time, what we can do is scan
our main sources of content and develop criticism for future occasions.
Wow I loved your post, I completely get you. Regarding this situation, I was really suprised with what happened recently in Medellin with the tweets of the major about the vaccines, which was almost the same that you were telling about the subsidies for Venezuelan citizens. Many elder were agglomerated waiting for a vaccine that was not even able. Disinformation is everywhere and it is exhausting, you never know what to truly believe.
ResponderBorrarI think this is a very dangerous situation as you state. it is being used to promote political ideologies through lies, not just the pandemic, but the the vaccines, el paro and every aspect of our daily life which is influenced by this false information that can lead us to chaos.
ResponderBorrarI really liked what you said about fake news, they seem harmless and irrelevant, but the damage they can do is enormous if they are shared by many people in social media and other communication channels. We have already realized in Colombia how dangerous these news can be, and that’s why if we talk, for example, about covid 19, during the first months of the arrival of the virus in the country, many fake news were spread, they spoke of a virus created, that the vaccine would be a chip that they were going to insert to control us, and more absurd things like these. And as I said, the problem is not that one or two people believe in these news, the problem comes when they share them through social media and create panic, in addition to a huge misinformation. Therefore, you always have to look for reliable sources, and verify the authenticity of each information that you share.
ResponderBorrarHi Ana, i liked your post and i totally agree with you ; although we do not believe, fake news can have negative effects and cause a lot of damage, this situation of the fake news has been very present not only in the pandemic , but also with the paro (the situation that we are living in Colombia nowadays) and the information about the vaccination of the COVID-19. I think that all of us can contribute to this situation being sure that the information we are going to share with our friends or family is 100% real and trustworthy. For example i know some people that do not want to get the vaccination of the coronavirus because, due the fake news they think it will cause serious harm to their health, so if all of us contribute we can help to decrease this type of situations.
ResponderBorrar