Can Fake News Be Good?

18-12-23 00 / episode: 336

How can fake news be good?

Fake news has invaded our society.

It has invaded our global society.

it has global reach and global impacts.

Let's take a look at the good side and the bad side of the results on trust and rising standards for publishers and the public.

Welcome to the Les Perras podcast episode 336. Today’s topic is fake news.

Bad side

I don't want to talk about the bad side very much.

There's a very simple reason for that.

Everyone else has been talking about it for years now.

There's reduced trust, democracy is broken, and our governments are in trouble.

There's tons of bad side to fake news, but let's take a look at the good side.

Good side

Fake news is causing us to wake up.

We can't be babies anymore.

When you're a baby, you trust your parents without thinking and without choice.

We had become that way when fake news hit us blind.

This is causing us to wake up and not be babies anymore;

we have to grow up and become responsible.

Robust and diverse debate

With the advent of fake news, we have more information coming at us, more sides to an issue, and more voices.

Many of them are wrong or misleading, but simply having more voices is making the debate more lively.

and a lively debate causes people to think more and make better decisions in the long run. The short run is a different story entirely.

Reduced trust

Fake news has caused us to lose trust.

and reduced trust in the institutions, newsgivers, and sources of news means that everybody feels cautious and careful.

If you don't feel cautious and careful, then you're still asleep.

But for those of us who have woken up, we realize this is the world of caveat emptor. You have to beware.

When you consume information, it's like you're buying it.

you're taking it in.

you have to assess the quality of that news yourself before you take it in.

There will be a period of adjustment while our skills are growing,

but after that, we will be much stronger and more adept at dealing with questionable information.

Creating trust

There's a new standard for trust these days.

It's a high standard.

If you want to build trust, you have to reach that standard. You have to prove to everybody how and why they can trust what you're saying when you're passing on information.

That means quality has gone up.

Well, to be honest, it hasn't gone up very much yet, but it is going up; it's on its way.

We're going to have high quality information in the foreseeable future.

Publishers

Now publishers have to make it clear what their standards are and how they can maintain them.

They're going to have to have some place for consumers to check what their standards are and if they're suitable.

Consumers

It's not only publishers who are facing higher standards.

We, the consumers, are facing higher standards.

If we allow ourselves to go by with low standards, we're going to get low quality information and a lower quality life.

We have to be more discerning and think more as we consume the information all around us.

We have to become critical thinkers and questioning thinkers.

not washing your hands.

Now, if you spread fake news, it's like you're passing on dirt. or giving people food when you have dirty hands.

This is a question of information hygiene, and poor hygiene will reflect badly on the person.

so we have to wash our hands regularly to keep clean and pass on clean information.

That's how I see fake news benefiting society.

it's hard in the short term but the long run, it's going to be great