Misinformation in the digital age: A threat to peace and stability
“A message of peace in troubled times.” Thanks to the author for these lines (Moving Into High Gear by Michael Lim Ubac, 3/7/25). Peace is a sensitive plant, it can blossom but also wither very easily so we must cultivate peace.
Peace may not be everything in life, but everything else becomes meaningless when peace is absent. Wars often arise from lies and misunderstandings. First and foremost, I’m thinking of fake news on social media.
The scientist in me thinks when I say to myself about this or that article: “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.” This is exactly what is often missing and is overlooked by readers and therefore taken as fact. If someone tells you that a flying pink elephant landed on the Pasig River bridge today and caused traffic chaos, you certainly wouldn’t accept this news 1:1 and question whether there isn’t just nonsense behind it or whether the “pink elephant” was perhaps just an escaped horse whose owner is now looking for it?
All jokes aside, you have to be careful with news on social media. Always look at the facts, where they come from, and the imprint to see who is actually saying something from where. One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken.
Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back. American astrophysicist Carl Sagan, whom I greatly respect, once said in 1992, knowing fully well what the future would bring: “If we are not able to ask skeptical questions, to interrogate those who tell us that something is true, to be skeptical of those in authority, then, we are up for grabs for the next charlatan (political or religious) who comes rambling along.”
What he said then still applies today. Nothing disturbs me more than the glorification of stupidity and that is exactly what often happens on the internet and social media. The truth may be puzzling. It may take some work to grapple with. It may be counterintuitive. It may contradict deeply held prejudices. It may not be consonant with what we desperately want to be true. But our preferences do not determine what’s true. If we continue to accumulate only power and not wisdom, we will surely destroy ourselves.
There is a theory that many advanced civilizations in the universe no longer exist because they may have destroyed themselves. If we do not learn to use our intelligence better, we will soon cease to exist. The internet is not only dangerous for children and young people. Children must learn to ask questions. Ask courageous questions. Do not be satisfied with superficial answers.
Don’t judge everyone else by your own limited experience. Any idiot can start a war, but ending a war and securing peace requires many intelligent people and diplomacy. In this sense: “Peace be with you!”
Jürgen Schöfer, Ph.D.,
Biopreparat.Schoefer@gmail.com
