Fake news and the market of information

When information is free you are the product in platform markets. But beware that the celebration of vibes in the information networks need not be based on the number- game but on the quality of human empathy that it multiplies for common good.

The clamor for being in the social media takes the better of authenticity. So beware.

An eye catching headline always attracts us more than the details that ensue; a newsworthy item could go unnoticed for absence of a striking headline. This was when the print media ruled the roost.

In today’s world a headline is the news in social media, no one has time for reading a detailed report. So the galore rises beyond proportions, in news items, that could attract us to almost anything. This could take any format, the more the brief-enough articulation, whether in audio or print or video, the bigger the impact.

This is a sharing world. No one could share news in earlier times beyond a handful of people. Today even ordinary people could have thousands of followers. It is just a click of a button that could spread any information to thousands of people. When you see the multiplier effect, millions could be reached in almost no time. You do not need newspapers to get to any news item; the news item could reach you individually and in any version.

Cross border movement of news or information is the next big change, if the borders are open to internet traffic, which is the case for most part of the world. So what is happening now in the remote districts of North Dakota could end up in the handheld devices in East Timor within minutes.

Round tripping of information around the world is at the click of the button.

But what about the veracity of the information? What about the liabilities of the incorrectness? Who is the editor, who is the verifier?

The internet is one gigantic piece of information overload, where the only checks and balances lie with the market of information and mis-information. Or is there such a market?

The market of information in earlier times was held by the print media, they traded news items of interest and with the circulation aggregates they could attract producers of goods to sell their product advertisements on the same media. As television came in, the competition started to grow and the monopoly of the print media was lost. With internet and the social media, the game has changed completely.

People are likely to spend more time on an average on social media than they spent on news media, whether be it in print or in television. The news items in social media could range from the traditional channels of news to the absolutely informal channels, sometimes originating from ordinary people with no formal access to news or information.

The over drive of information floating around important events, like an election or a catastrophic event or even a major change in government policy in current times is influenced more by social media than the traditional channels of information. In fact the traditional channels have to contend with such overloads, some of which could be completely false.

Influencing opinion is where the object of any information lies, but there have been rules and checks and balances in place. Imagine a party making false claims on television, there would be a slew of commentators delving into the claims and a plethora of evidence for or against these would be put up for scrutiny.

For social media it poses as a challenge as verification is almost impossible and for all practical purposes the sources of information are all never fully known. In fact the norms are changing that the source of information are not even sought out for. The clamor for being in the social media takes the better of authenticity; such are the trials and tribulations of the sharing world we have created.

The real world of research, which needs data, verification of data, experiments with models and hypothesis testing remains a far cry from this sharing economy and the market of information. The former is a slow process and could take months before you could get the hypothesis tested and inference drawn. The latter is the instant messaging world of opinions, whether or not that is based on loads of data from authentic sources is another matter.

The market of information has become one extreme pot where aggregation of hearsay, half-truth, personal prejudice, informed judgment and purposeful overture to mislead has to contend with the other side of the information world, which is time tested retinue of hard work where there is no escaping the scrutiny from competing sources of information.

Is the world losing its edge on scrutiny as the harbinger of scientific thought and enquiry? Is scrutiny being replaced by far-reaching implications of a sharing economy where followership counts at the cost of truthful and reliable information?

No algorithm can solve this puzzle and it is humanly impossible to segregate the right from the wrong information. This could pervade from products and processes to the information that control our lives to the choices we make in our daily lives.

For all you know the product you are getting attracted to is the best for you given the competing choices you have. But how would you know what actually are the choices available if you are barred from knowing them?

This is the problem of information markets, where unfettered flow could actually be having higher costs than benefits. The solutions perhaps lie in not controlling the flow or in making laws, but in creating the conditions where the celebration of vibes is not to be based on the number game but on the quality of human empathy that it multiplies for common good.

But that remains a long haul, at least for now.