I, You, We... The Truth!

The day is always busy with code, calls, and commitment towards the so-called excellence but for us, it indeed grants us a minute or few to either write or read about something happening around us! The Truth! I believe truth plays a predominant role in IT and those hilarious conversations never end that easily! When I say that, I should give some examples. However, the fact is, when it comes to writing, the author takes the liberty to use a stranger for all his poor stories, so do I! I know these guys who keep mailing each other stating that the issue is at your end, and we cannot do anything from our end. Their narratives will be awesome! This happens at least once every two days, and both say the same until the 3rd or 4th email conversation. Indeed, they come up with the past evidence stating that the issue was resolved by you last time – Again, both say the same (Yeah, we are more into production support). They point out the emails, chats, and a couple of documents until the manager comes into the picture. Finally, the truth will come out in the end as most epics in the world have rightly preached!

More about truth, one of my colleagues was offered an onsite position though the traveling date was never mentioned when he put his paper. It was a verbal promise and the Covid situation was often referred to during his discussion with the manager. Will he enjoy the breeze abroad? Was that a strategy to keep him longer in the company with this unbelievable attrition rate? What is the truth? The skype chat, Mails, Client, Global travel policies, and significantly, the annoying guy who just left the country and keeps posting pictures wherever possible, all matter in this subject! Assumptions play a vital role not just inside a team, company, but very importantly in life! A proverb says, what you see, hear, is not the truth, but what you understand after a proper assessment is! What is going to happen next is what defines the trueness of what is happening now! Yes, we are living in the post-truth era!

Oxford Dictionary defines post-truth as "Relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief". When I read this on Wikipedia, the first thing that came to my mind was politics. I am not talking about the ones happening inside the closed walls, but in public, Infront of thousands of people! A political leader blames a party for something which he has no evidence other than a mere allegation. Interestingly, he gets a response back from the opposition stating that it all happened only because of his party. Since we don’t have a manager here, the truth never comes out. But what survives among us is millions of tweets, tons of Facebook posts, and loads of WhatsApp messages! It’s a matter of people to either believe or not and that goes as per their personal belief, and nothing related to the truth! Again, into politics, I noticed one of my friends who likes a set of personalities and his Facebook, YouTube, WhatsApp groups were filled with a certain ideology – The same I noticed with my uncle who has the same ideology. They both follow the same posts, view the same videos, and forward the same messages. They like to hear more on that topic, and they believe it’s true! The stuff they follow can even portray their character to a certain extent! And they can be categorized into a group based on their interest in social media. “Tell me who is your friend, and I will tell you who you are!” is an old proverb! “Show me the YouTube feed, and I will tell you who you are!” is the new one!

Social media platforms have taken control over other media and this generation relies more on Twitter, Facebook, and WhatsApp to know news and current affairs! I find Twitter funny most times! They do the same with Facebook too! For anything that happens, they post an indirect note! The simplest example is if Kerala Blasters wins an amazing match, Twitter floods with #Manjappada! People who don’t know about Kerala Blasters will never understand the meaning of it and I once again take the liberty to speak about a stranger in Kerala who doesn't exist! Imagine the same with a day-to-day issue. A guy posted a #CongratulationsBhai for a celebration a film star made and unfortunately, just minutes after the post, the film star met with an accident! His fans started harassing him thinking that he congratulated him for his accident, created memes that are still alive although he had clarified his post within a few minutes! When it comes to social media, “Once said remains always said, yeah even if the post was deleted!”. Even this statement about a guy and a film star as a whole is also part of the post-truth era – My sincere contribution!

The Post-truth era is all about believing and connecting emotions rather than analysing the truth. Social media plays a vital role in changing the mindset of people. Years ago, when newspapers were the sole source of news, we had authenticity and we have even witnessed the newspaper authorities who apologize if ever a piece of false news was published in their newspaper. Today the case is different, I sometimes feel like everyone around me is a news reporter. A guy keeps sharing forward messages which are highly unimaginable. The fake articles about covid he shared were worse than covid itself! People believe what is posted on Facebook and WhatsApp is true and never try a step to verify its legitimacy. Many YouTube channels followed by lakhs of people are more propaganda and highly biased. A YouTuber posts a video for which another YouTuber replies with another video, both explaining their views but nullifying the truth. We are all one way or the other connected to those biased feeds for which we have an emotional quotient than authenticity. I remember an old story I read when thinking about the way a message is passed via social media nowadays. How emotionally they narrate a topic just to get their benefit out of it. The story goes like this!

A guy was speaking about a dangerous chemical in front of 50 people in a hall. He urged everybody to sign a petition demanding strict control or total elimination of that dangerous chemical! He had enough reasons with him, he said, “It can cause excessive sweating and vomiting... It is a major component in acid rain... It can cause severe burns in its gaseous state and accidental inhalation can kill you...”. He further added, “It contributes to erosion, and it also decreases the effectiveness of automobile brakes…” and finally, “It has been found in tumours of terminal cancer patients”. He asked everybody to support him for its Ban! What do you think of it? Do you go with the ban or not?

Among them, forty-three people said yes, six were undecided, and only one knew that the chemical was “Water”!

The same method of narration is applied to most of the social media content and interestingly whatever the guy said above is at least true but when it comes to social media, most times lies! There should be strict laws to ensure only truth is spread which may seem difficult to enact, but it’s a need of the hour. Until the government takes a solid measure, make sure not to believe everything you read on social media. Spend some time to know the truth and be responsible before sharing anything that’s not a part of your knowledge! Cheers!