It's been some time since we've had enough scares, as not a day goes by without us learning about a new misfortune, threat, catastrophe or embezzlement. And this after they had been telling us that information is power. But now it turns out that trusting the information that reaches us, the amount of which is unfathomable, is truly reckless.
Our lives have been intervened. Our privacy has been erased. Because it turns out that the real information that those who gave us everything on a plate were looking for was none other than ours. And about us, insignificant workers that we are, they already know everything, while about them we know very little at all. We have fallen into the trap. Gladly, knowingly, delighted. Scabies with pleasure does not itch.
Given that since a month ago the National Security Council of the Cabinet of the Presidency of the Government described in its Annual National Security Report, at the beginning of the devilish electoral calendar already underway, which, whether we like it or not, is going to accompany us to the lake of what remains of the year, since among all the multiple evils that threaten us, the one with the greatest risk is nothing more and nothing less than misinformation. So far we have come.
The report warns that during the close, if not savage, slum electoral campaigns, we will be exposed to a tsunami of disinformation whose purpose is none other than “to destabilize and polarize society, in addition to undermining its trust in institutions.”
Well, when you look at it, the National Security Council could have saved itself the effort since we already knew all that. They lie to our faces. They make fun of us (even those who vote for them). They have no manners. Nor ideology. No scruples. They don't give a damn about us. In addition to the usual local liars and tricksters, some of great talent and imagination, the report also informs us that Russians and Chinese and who knows who else are also playing tricks here – and increasingly more so.
The amount of misinformation in circulation is enormous and continues to grow. So much so that finding a truth is like looking for a needle in a haystack. What's more, it's of no use. Take the case of Kate Middleton. It's really difficult to distinguish the real life of the flesh-and-blood British royal family from the fictional one, in series like The Crown, for example, no matter how based it is on real events. The line between reality and fiction has been blurred, one would say even for royalty themselves.
France is not spared either. The hoaxes in circulation, each more far-fetched, about the sexual identity of Brigitte Macron, wife of the president of the French republic, are believed by thousands of people. In other words, there are quite a few French people who believe the first lady's alleged transsexuality at face value. She's crazy, but that's how it is.
The sources of misinformation are a thousand-headed hydra. And as elusive as eels. But these falsehoods attract, fascinate, until they become “truths,” at least for some. What happens is that there are more and more of them, as the populists well know, and they are rising everywhere like foam.
There are people who would believe any nonsense. Well, okay, it has always been like this, but now, thanks above all to social networks, their number is increasing, as we will see throughout this electoral year that, far from strengthening our democracies, could end up like the rosary of the Aurora.
For this reason, we have no choice but to cling to the few serious sources of information that we have left. But how do you know what they are? It is not an easy task. How terrible this world would be without newsstands, and there are fewer of them every day. It really makes you think. And tremble.
