Only a few days of the new year have been enough to once again witness one of the most dangerous weapons that our democracy faces today: the campaigns of massive misinformation. Own President Biden I remembered this week -when it is fulfilled a year after the assault on the Capitol-, that the US is today the same or more divided than a year ago, that 70% of Trump’s followers continue to believe that there was electoral fraud and that the successive campaigns of hoaxes and lies have seriously damaged democracy.
Deliberately issue bulos, or misrepresent the statements of a public figure taking them out of context in order to caricature it and undertake a smear campaign against him thus avoiding some complex debates, or damaging a reputation is not a new fact, but it is gone amplifying exponencially with the impulse of the so-called social networks. In fact, every time public debates that affect certain interests are approached, or that are effective in wearing down the adversary, they are used again and again with total impunity by some political leaders, and certain supposed analysts and opinion leaders. These messages end up being forwarded a thousand times by a citizenry little given to contrast what comes to him through social networks, ignoring on many occasions that we are part of a system of algorithms that insistently offers us what we want to read without alternatives that awaken our slightest critical awareness.
Some of this we have seen again these days with the controversy arising after the interview granted by the Minister Garzón to an international medium. Beyond the temporary opportunity of debate, or the important substantive discussion —The amount of meat intake recommended by WHO and different scientists as healthy and sustainable; the necessary and urgent reduction of pollution, and the regulation of livestock exploitation models and their limits in full force in the EU and in our own country where different Autonomous Communities and the Government are regulating and limiting the so-called macro-farms—, it is at least interesting to analyze why the interview went unnoticed on the day of its publication. Why then was the headline that appealed to the need to reduce (not stop eating) meat unattractive, and why did it become trending topic a few days later, when a magazine close to one of the sectors affected by the debate circulates an excerpt taken out of context and with a headline that does not appear in those terms in the original interview, and is amplified by political spokesmen of the Spanish right, becoming a Bell not to address the substantive debate, but to discredit a member of the Government, in which they end up falling to the sectors closest to it.
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We had seen something similar in the past as a consequence of the regulation of alcohol or tobacco use and many other debates. What is really disturbing is that at a momentous moment in which we must urgently address a complex ecological transition capable of profoundly transforming our productive sectors and consumption patterns, taking into account the difficult balance between urban and emptied Spain and guaranteeing a green and sustainable economy, we are going to need more than ever rigorous debates, clear public spokespersons who spin fine, professionals dedicated to the noble task of informing, and tons of pedagogy and awareness, if we want to reach a successful conclusion, showing empathy with the affected sectors and convincing a citizenry immersed in a contradictory information war that is increasingly difficult to clarify.
Reference-www.elperiodico.com