Who Needs Facts … ?

Opinion

A brilliant new idea has been born: Because so much fake news is circulating on Facebook, Twitter and Co., the desire has been expressed in some states to set up an authority whose task it will be to label this news as such. How this should actually happen in practice is not entirely clear. Perhaps with a bar stating: “This is fake!”

Of course the bad boys and girls will come up with the idea of placing this bar on news which they do not like. In this way, it will be possible to claim that the statement just released by the government is a fake. There are a host of application possibilities with which more confusion can be created on the Internet.

In the leading media, arguments will ensue with policy makers as to whether that which they said – regardless of how obstinately they claim that they did not say this – is in any case true because there is no bar declaring it to be fake. In case of doubt, only that which has an official seal of approval is considered true.

The new Ministry of Truth will have its hands full. Fake news can be producued within minutes but to refute it requires a significantly greater effort. At last, new employment opportunities can be created for the thousands and thousands of unemployed who have to carefully research everything which is being disseminated.

In technical jargon they will be called the “post-checkers”. Finally, some positive news. However, the matter cannot rest with an examination after the event, of course.

In the next legal amendment on the Truth Law, it will be stated that every posting in social media will, at first, have to be carefully examined. Facebook will be obliged to only make visible posts which have been approved by the authorities.

Admittedly, this could result in a minor delay from a few hours to days until one receives the notification: “Post examined. Will be published now!” But anyway we spend much too much time in these parallel worlds and, as such, two birds can be killed with one stone.

Besides, who is really interested in whether or not something is true? This is merely a social construct in the same way as gender. Post-truth is the new science. Regardless of what is being claimed. Everything is true – or fake. Depending on what side of the fence you are on. From the governing or the opposing side.

The earth is flat – here your final, 100% proof on YouTube. You don’t believe YouTube? Why not? Are you one of these conspiracy theorists who believe that we are being watched all over the world by NASA, only because you read that once on the Internet? Oh no, that was only in Wikipedia until 2013. In the meantime this global surveillance via ECHELON has been confirmed as non-fake news as a result of the disgraceful goings-on of Snowden and it says so in Wikipedia 2016.

This will also be problematic. If government authorities confirm that something is the unadulterated and absolute truth and then it emerges that it was a brazen lie (of course, for the good of the people) then over time, the situation become unclear.

Is the report that was confirmed last week as true now false? Do two wrongs make a right?

You are bound to recognise my insecurity. I am now not even sure whether this here is a serious expression of an opinion or whether it can be rather labelled as “sarcasm“. The easiest thing to do would be to submit this article to the Ministry of Truth and then they can decide whether to take this seriously or whether I have to be detained due to “subversive undermining of the social convention on the stabilisation of the truth” (§42 Truth Law).

Translation German-English: Donna Stockenhuber

Credits

Image	Title	Author	License
	2000px-Ingsoc_logo_from_1984.svg	Nirwrath	CC BY-SA 3.0
	Who needs facts	Patryk Kopaczynski	CC BY-SA 4.0