We live in an age of information surplus. Many of us can access information at our fingerprints. However, most of us are unaware of what is true and what is false. With the advancement of technology, one might think it would be easier to learn about the phenomenon of fake news but it is quite the contrary. Fake news, disinformation and propaganda, all three different concepts, are constantly working together to create an echo chamber of ideologies.
Technology has been altered to cater to individuals, where each individual is said to be in a ‘filter bubble’ or ‘echo chamber’ of information. A person would receive and filter information based on their ideologies and biases which in turn gets reinstated by this filter bubble.
It’s a vicious cycle, a never-ending problem. Moreover, concerns about the creation of filter bubbles are not new. For example, Cass Sunstein, Professor at Harvard Law School, raises this issue in his book Republic.com and argues that filter bubbles push people to make significant decisions on politics, elections, ideologies and even the Covid pandemic.
With the onset of the pandemic, news and information forwards are never-ending. While most may seem harmless messages sent by concerned relatives, what about the information sent with the purpose of spreading communal biases and hate?
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