Why we need mainstream media
This week Donald Trump claimed the atom was split in America, not the UK, and a friend of mine shared a remarkably convincing AI video of herself talking.
Like many, I’ve watched with horror this week as the truth has been painted as fiction and fiction held up as truth.
As we all know, history is written by the victors. There is now documented footage of the President of the United States rewriting history. He said it, he’s an authoritative figure, people will believe it must be true.
Here’s Ian Hislop, editor of Private Eye, talking about Elon Musk’s lack of concern about being truthful:
(Youtube should open in a new tab but if not, watch the video here)
With AI it is easier than ever to insert fake news into the news cycle. Many people now get their news from social media, a place where algorithms serve up videos related to something you’ve expressed an interest in and before you know it you’re watching something you didn’t choose to.
We all need to be critical thinkers but that gets harder when you see a post that appeals to your personal biases on social media and press like, or comment, or share, before having the opportunity to verify what’s been said. Who has posted what we’re reading or watching? Why have they made it?
Which is why in our digital world we need to hold on to something that might seem obsolete: newspapers, printed books, and archives. And if you prefer your facts digitally, Wikipedia.
There’s a brilliant episode of Inspector Morse where a master criminal hacks into the police database after doing a computer science degree and frames Morse, turning him into a convicted criminal. Sergeant Lewis says, grimly: “There’s one thing he can’t hack, the Oxford Mail!”
While nothing is perfect – bias exists in newspapers and books, not everything you read is as well researched as it should be, testimony can be missed – these records enable us to check who was involved, where things happened, and when.
The other thing we need to accept is that while we’ve all been happy to go along with paying for these free sites with our data instead of cash, we are going to have to start paying if we want to have nice things.
Wikipedia cannot exist without donations.
Newspapers cannot exist without paying subscribers.
Social platforms cost money to host and run. They can do that through advertising to you, or they can do that by asking you to pay to use their functionalities.
Is life online getting more complex? Yes. But humans can handle complexity, it’s one of our strengths. What we need to do is bring others along for the ride with us and stick to our values. You might be on a different path to me but that’s ok.
