As per Merriam Webster’s dictionary, Disinformation means: “false information deliberately and often covertly spread (as by the planting of rumors) in order to influence public opinion or obscure the truth“. It is an act of deception and false statements to convince someone of untruth. Unlike traditional propaganda techniques designed to engage emotional support, disinformation is designed to manipulate the audience at the rational level by either discrediting conflicting information or supporting false conclusions. A common disinformation tactic is to mix some truth and observation with false conclusions and lies, or to reveal part of the truth while presenting it as the whole (a limited hangout).
Another technique of concealing facts, or censorship, is also used if the group can affect such control.
When channels of information cannot be completely closed, they can be rendered useless by filling them with disinformation,
effectively lowering their signal-to-noise ratio and discrediting the opposition by association with many easily disproved false claims.
When every organization is driven by profit/money business, news media is no different. They work on different agenda, as defined by their stakeholders or who provides the funds and resources to run those corporations, so much so that, there is no un-biased news channel or paper or website left, that you can trust.
So, it has become virtually impossible to get to the truth and know the facts, what is happening or has happened.This becomes extremely dangerous, where the evil-doers get away with such heinous crime, unimaginable before, because of this disinformation plague.
Decades passes, yet people in general, don’t know what was the truth, and they are confused through bombardment of false news. It has resulted in people’s inaction, no matter how severe an incident occurs. People tend to stay away, since they don’t know what is correct information, which side to take, who is the culprit (evil) and who is being suppressed (good). The examples are – 9/11 incident killing thousands of people, overthrowing Libyan government, killing hundreds of thousands in Iraq for weapons of mass destruction, occupation of Afghanistan, mass murder of Egyptians, use of chemical weapons against Syrian population and hundreds of pharma industry frauds, banking frauds, healthcare regulatory body and government corruptions and so on. Majority does not raise their voice against it, or take any action, because they’re being confused, as to whether to believe if the information is true or false in the first place. That is where the evil-doers gets a free hand, which is something very dangerous for the humanity and we need to find a solution for it.
What “I” did to tackle it: I stopped following mainstream media (TV, websites or papers). I seek news from social media, where I research news, learning from both sides and try to find what is true. I read what my friends or people have to say about it, if they have authenticated the information or made a logical guess. Depending on their level of expertise on the topic and their credibility, I believe in the inforamtion. I may not necessarily get to the truth quickly always, but it is still better than hearing all biased (false) news, because you know, you cannot deny the immense power of TV – see, hear and listen at the same time.
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