We have entered an era where the importance of a piece of news is decided not by its truth, but by how many people saw it, shared it, and commented on it.
On the surface, this feels like a minor shift, but it has completely changed our standards for thinking, understanding, and forming an opinion.
In the past, for an event to reach the front page of a newspaper, it had to pass through an editor’s eyes. The importance of the news, its authenticity, and its public impact were considered. Today, a mobile phone, a few seconds of video, and an interesting sentence can reach millions of people simultaneously.
The problem is not that everyone has been given the right to freedom of expression. That is a positive change. The real problem is that along with freedom of expression, we have also created an attention economy.
Whatever holds our attention longer will be shown more. And whatever more people watch, the algorithm will deliver to even more people.
Thus a strange loop is created:
People watch what is shown more, and what people watch is shown more.
In this loop, truth sometimes gets left behind.
A serious piece of research may be several pages long, take ten minutes to read, and contain no shocking sentence. On the other hand, an unverified claim, trolling, or a prank can be presented in just a few seconds of video. The result of which will spread faster is often predetermined.
Algorithms were made to simplify information and content, but now it sometimes feels as if algorithms have started to recognize not just our interests, but also our weaknesses.
We stop at a controversial post to express our anger in the comments. We forward a surprising piece of news to others immediately without any verification. To release tension and depression, we not only watch absurd humor ourselves but also consider sharing it a virtuous act, and then we wonder why social media is so negative. Where are people heading that leaving aside the educated, trends like “Nisha Pomi” are on top trending.
The responsibility here is not only of the social media platforms. It is also of the users.
Perhaps we need to learn a new habit: To pause before sharing.
To think before liking a piece of news whether it is actually true?
To check what its source is before accepting a claim as true?
And above all, to understand that our emotional state neither makes a piece of news true nor false. In today’s era, the greatest strength of false news is not that it is false, but that it is interesting. And perhaps the greatest weakness of truth is that it is often not sensational.
But societies do not run on interesting stories alone. Societies run on reality, reason, and responsibility.
So perhaps we need to change the question. Instead of asking how viral is this news? We should ask: how accurate is this news?
Because not everything viral is important, and not everything important is viral.