Misinformation is incorrect or misleading information unintentionally presented as fact. This is contrasted with disinformation which is deliberately deceptive. Both have become very common in today’s world playing a destructive role in the society, politically as well as socially.
The most common source of information these days is News channels and media. In this era of social media, it has become so easy to spread any form of information or news without considering it to be true or not. As the audience is not very cautious about the authenticity of the information due to which they are unable to distinguish whether the news or information is the fact, opinion, scandal, allegation, or a propaganda. They just soak it in and build their perspectives and beliefs on them. Basically, they are unable to take the news as diversly as it is presented.
These platforms are being used to influence people’s opinions and building their bias perspectives. The political leaderships have been using this as well to create political biasness. They tend to speak anything on camera in the shadow of opinion or allegation but their popularity in people make it an information for them which these common people use in their drawing room discussions and end up in an argument or a fight.
Other than that, an unchecked and an inauthentic throw of news all over social media affects the morals of the society as well as the image of the whole nation in the world. Following the current situation in Pakistan. The public has become very rigid on their stance but whether their stance is backed with the authentic information or not it is questionable.
Situations like these involve the concepts of ‘half information’ which is more dangerous than having ‘no information’. Populous leaderships and these platforms have played part in such a way that people now would only prefer the news or set of information that will follow their induced belief system.
For instance, people do know about the several prominent cases on PMLN Leadership due to which they are cursed and trolled but the sentencing and the judgments of the court are unknown to them. People know that Nawaz Sharif is not ‘saadiq ’ or ‘ameen’ because of which he has been disqualified but on what judgements ? they do not know, because these haven’t got much hype. which is causing an unusual hatred in public. The common public has become so rigid and their beliefs so strong that they would grab each other by the neck not noticing how this spread of false news and half news has become a curse for the society.
Similarly, the toshakhana allegations on Imran khan. This is not a matter to be known in public like this unless there are some objectives behind it. It is supposed to be decided in the court but the leaderships in the fight of words and statements would use anything to destroy each other’s image in public and induce an unnecessary hate. Unfortunately, it goes both ways. The uneven spread of news and using them in speeches while giving statements via an agenda of presenting them as an information to common people who already can not differ between the diverse forms of news and consider everything to be true. This misinformation is used in the rivalry against each other.
The Populus leaderships are using this to keep it going the same way. In the PTI government there were drug cases opened against Rana Sana Ullah (39th interior minister). It was all over social media and everywhere possible to be known by the public that he was involved in the drug business and is dishonest. But eventually Ch. Fawad claimed that there were no actual cases against SanaUllah. But it is now unknown to most public that it was a false news or an allegation.
Every political party criticises the functioning and activities of the previous or in reign government even knowing there are limitations to every government considering the parliamentary system being followed in Pakistan which brings certain limits to the governing bodies. Similarly, each government gets the tenure of five years which is not enough to build or work on larger and long term projects as their results will not appear sooner to cash on for next elections. Due to this reason all parties go for short term and early delivering projects to impress the public. All officials, media houses and journalists are aware of these facts yet these topics are always up for discussion to let each other down, gain PR, remain in spotlight and mislead the public.
Media channels playing their part in such perspective monopolies for their PR and not giving the actual fact checks. Social media is a platform to which every common person has an access of gaining and providing their knowledge and information which is even more harmful for the society, having unchecked sharing of all sorts of information with little to no actual basis.
It is leading to such strong yet biased perspectives and mind sets that people can not distinguish between right and wrong in the society anymore. Neither can do constructive criticism on their own leaders or political situations nor even on social issues rather fight with an egoistic approach blaming any opposing person without any factual basis.
There is also a psychological perspective about which the people need a lot of awareness. There are four key psychological principles identified related to the absorption and spread of disinformation: initial information processing; cognitive dissonance; the influence of groups, beliefs, and novelty; and the role of emotions and arousal. These principles contribute to the absorption and spread of disinformation, and details way to mitigate the effect of the principle on the spread of disinformation.
By providing valuable insight into how and why we are likely to believe misinformation and disinformation, psychological science can inform how we protect ourselves against its ill effects. Providing tools to recognize fake news is a key strategy.
