How do we know that two and two make four? Are we sure that the force of gravity is incontestable? Who tells us that the past cannot be changed? It all depends on our perception. If we are bombarded with falsehoods until we block our ability to discern between what is true and what is not, we may come to think that two and two make five, that trees fly or that the General Council of the Judiciary is not ‘has renewed because the PSOE did not want to.
The question, however, is who can think of it: the enemies? Or ours? Collective hallucinations are more frequent than individual ones. Everything depends on the dose: after a certain number of falsehoods, we settle into a parallel reality; we resent everything we are told or read, we isolate ourselves in our respective bubbles and become the ideal recipients of the most reactionary and anti-democratic messages.
Ten or twelve years ago, there were legions who argued that what we then called new technologies would strengthen democracy. It was a time of optimism: the majority thought that, thanks to the new forms of political mobilization, the power of the citizens would be unstoppable; authoritarianism had its days numbered; censorship was useless; everything would end up being known everywhere. It was the time of the Arab spring, of 15-M, of the Maidan.
After several failures, however, the pendulum swung the other way. It began to be seen that the new forms of mobilization weakened the traditional parties without replacing them with more effective structures and that groups with more reactionary ideas took advantage of the new platforms to scatter balls and promote indignation and extremism. The networks offered the possibility of accessing a third part of the planet. It was illusory to think that authoritarian regimes and anti-democratic forces would not take advantage.
At the moment, the pendulum is at the most pessimistic end. Now everyone disowns the networks; everyone finds that the jumble of assumptions, slander, balls, gossip, uncontested facts and indisputable facts that runs across the screens, without any hierarchy or truth control, is a very slippery basis for serious debate. The line between rumor and news has blurred. Technology does not distinguish between rumours, lies and confirmed facts, nor does it stop racist or sexist content, which can reach millions of mobile phones and computers in a matter of seconds.
This pendulum movement, however, advises caution. Hasn’t the tabloid press always outsold the serious press? In politics, lies have always been told. No need to remember Goebbels and his techniques. The novelty is the scale of current production, the verisimilitude that falsehoods can have thanks to manipulated images, the speed of diffusion, the ease with which they reach the most unsuspected corners.
Reporting well is very difficult. You need to verify the facts, weigh how they are presented, measure what is said. You need to reflect all the nuances, listen to all the parts. The truth is rarely pure or simple. The balls, yes. That’s why they travel faster and that’s why disinformation is usually better business than information.
Facebook and company do not ignore that the algorithms they use promote the most malicious information and pages with the most dubious content. But they know that if they change them, they lose their audience, because news that promotes hatred and false information goes viral more easily than sensible and truthful information. Today there are digital media that are masters in the art of spreading unverified news and intoxicating public debate. But sometimes it seems that these digital people, in reality, are really fooling their own people and that they rarely convince anyone who isn’t already convinced.
One example among a thousand: the balls, inventions and half-truths that some digital people spread about the President of the Government’s Falcon. Surely there are readers who read them with enthusiasm and believe them with blind eyes. But I doubt any of them ever voted for the party of the main passenger on the plane. Those who believe this pseudo-information do nothing more than reaffirm an idea they already have in their heads, that this passenger is not a legitimate user of the Falcon. It’s what bubbles and lies have, they feed on each other.
These media do a disservice to those they seek to serve. The balls they put into circulation are not only swallowed by ordinary citizens, but also by some of the politicians who hope to count on their votes. And these politicians, by virtue of believing information like this, have a distorted idea of ??reality that deprives them of the ability to connect with many citizens, especially with those who usually decide the elections, the less politicized and the undecided.
All this can be seen with particular clarity in the pressure cooker of Madrid, which is where these digitals have the most predicament (it is not the only place, of course). The bilious atmosphere that these digitals secrete, multiplied by the echo of radio programs with very little diffusion in the peninsular periphery, poisons especially those who manufacture balls and tendentious information, convinced that they make all of Spain believe that two and two they make five when, in reality, only themselves and their co-religionists think so. Isn’t this what is intuited in view of the surprise at the results of the last electoral calls? Can’t the same be observed everywhere fake news is spread?
The risk of tactics based on lies is to confuse friends without succeeding in deceiving enemies. In politics, as in private life, the most pernicious lies are the ones you tell yourself. Especially if you swallow them.
