With fake news rampant in the current social media world, it is becoming hard to find the truth. How do you find the truth then? Why should you find the truth? How do you deter fake news? There is no easy way. But eventually, it comes to individuals who really want to find out the truth. It also comes to what kind of mental model you are following. Long Distance or Short Distance.
Find the truth – How?
As a writer, my job is not to find the truth or even judge what is being shared or spread. My job is, to tell the truth. After all, it comes down to what I see and how I tell. When a writer tells a fiction story, he or she is inherently telling the truth coated with fictitious characters. Every individual has some kind of truth hiding in his subconscious, but we hide that truth either accepting everything that is thrown at us or whatever we read or digest. It takes conscious efforts to introspect and question every little detail. Finding the truth starts with asking yourself some basic, but as well tough questions. How many of us actually break down the information or our experiences to a fundamental level to challenge our biases? Very few.
The easiest way to gain true knowledge is to understand everything from the perspective of the first principles. If you reason any information with first principles, it removes any invalid assumptions and conventions.
Everything starts with asking how and why? If you continue to ask “why” you can dig deep enough to find false information.
A few questions you can ask to validate any information
- Is this true?
- Who is the information provider?
- Why is this true?
- What are the assumptions and how we can break down the information further?
Why?
Why do we need to find true knowledge or true information? Well, first for the sanity of the society. False or fake news is all about creating a narrative, mostly political narrative. And when it comes to political agenda, it is all about dividing a society. Find anything suitable for your political agenda and use it to gain some advantage. That’s what the politicians do. Freedom of expression does not mean you use it the way you want and weave the net of false information.
Conclusion
To fight fake news, more and more people should doubt everything they consume for information. But, only doubting does not help, you have to go one step further to find the truth for yourself, for your society.