From the desk of Roland Rocchiccioli – 23 May

It is a truism: If you persist, loudly and long enough, in telling people something which is untrue, there are those who will come to believe it.

 

IT is a scary proposition, and one against which we need to stand implacably united. We need to be cognisant of this phenomenon which has swept the world.

Donald Trump, the former President of the United States, is a prime example. He played fast-and-loose with the truth in his dangerously populist campaign to achieve success. His cleverly placed prevarications attracted the marginalised, the disenfranchised, and the 73 million American voters who felt they had been ignored, and for too long.

Where once it was more difficult to disseminate spurious propaganda with such wide-spread success, social media has changed the landscape, irrevocably. All it takes is the simple press of a key and it flies, for all time, out into the ether.

Crusty, old-fashioned newspaper editors, whose job it was to temper the truth and root-out the pesky fifth columnists, have been replaced by internet entrepreneurs; whiz kids, whose only objective is an obscene accumulation of wealth, regardless of the consequences of their seeming indifference to the truth.

In their defence, it is impossible to monitor every tweet or posting made on social; however, for the estimated $3 billion a year he earns in salary, Mr Zuckerberg, and his coterie of acolytes, have a responsibility to find a way. That is their job, regardless of the degree of difficulty. Sadly, the undeniable benefits of social media are sometimes overshadowed by its darker aspects.

Conspiratorialists were, before the advent of our pervasive social media, figures of fun. In London they were free Sunday afternoon entertainment at Speakers’ Corner in Hyde Park. After a Sunday lunch dinner of roast beef and Yorkshire pudding, people went along for a bit of light-hearted banter. The more zealous of the soap-box orators were deemed to be ‘nutty as a fruit cake’. No-one took them seriously.

Times have changed. It is no longer the case. Social media, in all its various and sometimes damaging forms, has given everyone, including radical fundamentalists, the misinformed, the ill-informed, and the ignorant, a megaphone to the world. Those at whom we once poked fun are now a real threat to the fabric of our society. While much of what is asserted has no basis in truth it does not halt the proliferation, or the determination. They are emboldened by the safety of anonymity; a relatively free reign of opinion; and the ready affirmation of like-minded conspirators. They feed-off each other’s paranoia.

Brazenly, former President Trump labelled Mexicans as drug dealers, criminals and rapists; adding, as an afterthought, “I assume some of them are good people.” It was a pernicious notion with which he persisted in his various simplistic political incantations, and with some success. Few dared to challenge his diatribe. When it comes from an office such power it carries the weight of truth. Concerningly, it struck an ugly chord with disgruntled Americans. If it is what they want to hear people will believe.

Truth is a delicate and subjective concept. It is like fairy gold. It disappears at the touch of human hands. We have a responsibility, each of us, to speak-out in its defence, the aggregate of which is sometimes imbalanced. Unfortunately, and in too many instances, truth is the victim. The quite babble of the moderates is drowned out by the strident screeching of the dissidents in their determination to destroy our way of life.

Those who use social media as a platform for their misinformation, disinformation, and blatant lies, must be held to account. They must be howled down by the truth, which is all that matters in the end.

In Australia, Facebook has deemed it necessary to takedown the page of MP Craig Kelly for his persistent dissemination of misinformation.

We all need to exercise extreme caution.

Caveat emptor!

Roland can be heard each Monday at 10.45am on radio 3BA with Brett Macdonald and contacted via [email protected].