Misinformation
What is misinformation?
"Misinformation" is an overused word on the Internet during the entire period of the current pandemic. Before knowing about misinformation, we first should understand what information is.
Well, there are many sources of information about "Information."
We can take help from an English dictionary. The definition of information is very straightforward and simple:
Information is "knowledge obtained from investigation, study, or instruction."
Thus information can be considered as "intelligence," "news," and "data."
The ambiguity comes when one tries to find a definition for "misinformation."
English dictionaries provide a simple definition of misinformation.
Misinformation referes to "false information that is spread, regardless of whether there is intent to mislead" or anything similar in meaning.
One fundamental question comes very naturally.
How do you decide whether the information is "false" or "truth?"
The mainstream news media have been playing a notorious role in propagating "misinformation" as "information" and vice versa.
You may ask me, "How do you know?"
If you analyze history, you can understand that mainstream news media are the main stakeholders of selling "information" as "misinformation" and vice versa.
Today, let us consider some examples from current topics of interest and try to make out what "misinformation" really is and how it pervasively impact the entire human society.
Misinformation unintentionally creep inside daily life grindings
The most obvious topic would be cryptocurrency because most members who post blogs here are interested in cryptocurrencies, especially the platform's official cryptocurrency.
Cryptocurrency misinformation
There is a lot of news around the domain of cryptocurrency that many of us are interested in reading every day. Whether we believe in that news or not, most crypto news affects our everyday actions around cryptocurrencies.
There are big claims and predictions on the future of specific cryptocurrencies.
A large portion of the cryptocurrency news is hyped to influence investors.
The crypto news hypes play a vital role in inducting new lovers and enthusiasts into cryptocurrency exercises.
The cryptocurrency arena will continue to spread hyped news to sell specific coins and to stop certain coins. The bigger coins utilize news hypes to kill their competitor coins.
For example, the Bitcoin community is continually trying to tweet published "misinformation" about Bitcoin Cash and block the growth of Bitcoin Cash.
Pandemic misinformation
The announcement of the so-called pandemic got much information to be disclosed to the people. The press information released by the global health regulatory board and different national health bodies got a lot of ambiguities.
A lot of political game has been played in announcing and enforcing the infamous viral pandemic on the global citizens. In most press disclosures, the world witnessed how worse "information" and "misinformation" are being interchanged.
The governments sponsored the mainstream news media to propagate "misinformation" as "information" to fearmonger the people with artiste-drawn images of the virus and sell the experimental jabs.
The mainstream Internet media censored many expert virologists, epidemiologists, medical doctors, and marked "information" as "misinformation" and stopped the free flow of news to the people.
The world is yet to know the real truth about the viral pandemic fully.
War misinformation
The war news about "Russia attacked Ukrain" hit the top-selling news on the Internet - Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube have flooded with news vlogs from reporters of mainstream news media and any common vloggers.
The author of this article had visited Ukrain in October 2016 and had witnessed proof of vigorous bullet fightings between the two earlier member states (Russia and Ukraine) of the erstwhile USSR. The mainstream news media had shielded those bullets fighting between Russia and Ukraine at that time!
Why did the mainstream news media shield the past many years' bullet fighting (since 1992) between the two newly formed nations Russia and Ukraine? Maybe, and surely, there was a deep political purpose ruled by the big nations.
Aren't these shielding "information" as "no information" or censoring "information" as "misinformation" some sort of crime?
The current war news of Russia and Ukraine has helped to shift the eyes of the global citizens from the tyrannical pandemic restrictions to a new humanist "war is bad" point of view. As if the two nations were exchanging bullets during the past thirty long years in a friendly "humanist" way!
There were a large number of students studying in universities of Ukraine and Russia from different Asian countries. The publication of the true situation earlier would have closed this sweet business opportunity of both Ukraine and Russia.
Closing thoughts but not the final words
It is interesting to notice that each misinformation may act as a benefactor for multiple interrelated solutions and/or products.
The current Ukraine President was against a proposed cryptocurrency bill. Now the same president has signed the cryptocurrency bill that he once refused to sign! It is a gain for the cryptocurrency domain.
Is this a positive sign out of the war news and crypto-donations to Ukraine?
Russias are also not away from cryptocurrencies when most big nations have imposed sanctions against their country. Some centralized cryptocurrency exchanges have stopped service to Russia. But, it doesn't mean the cryptographic technology of cryptocurrency will stop getting ways to serve the common citizens of Russia.
Russians are good at mathematics and computing. They may discover/develop new cryptographic protocol solutions which may drastically improve the data privacy feature and processing altogether. If they are successful, it will be a boon for the entire cryptocurrency fraternity.
Fake pandemic-induced lockdowns helped nature to revive some purity. We got back some of the nature and environment which were stolen by vigorous urban industrialization.
Now, it is summer in our location. We can get cuckoos' sweet singing from the hided places on the trees. The birds' chirping, and the blue sky have reappeared during the lockdowns.
The author of this article once visited Shenzhen, China, and witnessed how large-scale industrialization may threaten the environment and nature. Although, I applaud the Chinese people and authorities for trying their best to keep the adjacent greeneries, such as big banian trees in front of the eighty story skyscraper, plants inside the office, plans around the poles of the flyovers, etc.
Most important is to view opinions from both sides of the narratives - the mainstream news media and the alternative freedom-oriented news media. And, if possible, we need to verify the facts from personally acwuanted people from the news location.
We have to keep a vigil on the news items coming from various sources.
Just filtering a particular news media and social media can't solve the problem. We have to make ourselves aware of many scientific facts around the world.
We should undertake intentional steps to promote and spread rational sources of information to our family, relatives, friends, and acquaintances.
Postscript
I am a practitioner of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM). My current interests now become STEAM - Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics, because I have added: "Arts" and "Fine Art" to my interests.
I like creating solutions for password and cybersecurity relevant to cryptocurrencies, blockchain, and other block-less distributed ledgers.
Thanks to all my sponsors, whose names appear in the "Sponsor" pannel.
Cheers!
Text Copyright: Unity
Lead Image: GIF image created using the text from the title and a Photo by Markus Winkler on Pexels.
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Disclaimer: All texts are mine and original. Any similarity and resemblance to any other content are purely accidental. The article is not advice for life, career, business, or investment. Do your research before adopting any options.
Unite and Empower Humanity.
I am also on Noise.Cash ... click the link if you are there.
March 24, 2022.
Let me tell you, Unity, I was captivated by this piece. I could not find one thing to disagree with. I appreciate your ability to write candidly on this topic about misinformation. I too have observed, more so in recent years, that there is usually an agenda behind any information that is hyped and it makes me question much of what I absorbed without question before. It's sad to have grown so sceptical about the information you're served, but there you have it. And in an age where you see dissenting voices ruthlessly stifled, it can be scary. Critical thinking is no longer encouraged. And now people are afraid to ask questions.