Kam Raslan’s Talking Edge

(Reprinted from The Edge – Options pullout, 5 December 2016 issue)

Dear Kam,
Is it my imagination or has the internet made us stupider? It was supposed to open up new horizons of knowledge but it now seems to be clogged up with conspiracy theories.
Man in the net

The internet is an amazing thing. It can let you speak your mind, reconnect with old friends, buy the cheapest thing, research the best restaurants in Belgrade and basically expand your knowledge. Unfortunately, it also helps disinformation spread at lightning speed and although we can easily use the internet to study for the truth, we invariably swallow the disinformation instead.

Disinformation is not misinformation. Misinformation is false information that is simply wrong irrespective of whether it is deliberate or accidental. Disinformation is the deliberate attempt to spread falsehoods in order to deceive an audience.

The word disinformation only entered the English language in the 1950s at the beginning of the Cold War and it derives from a Russian word, which is appropriate because the Russians are extremely good at it. A recent example of Russian disinformation came after MH17 was shot down over the Ukraine by a surface-to-air missile. It was obvious that a missile had destroyed the Malaysian aircraft but a deliberate disinformation campaign citing “military experts” and backed up by a video display from the Russian military said that it was taken down by a missile fired by a Ukraine military jet.

Many Malaysians found the story to be convincing. When I did some research, I found that the “military experts” turned out to be one former officer of the Communist East German air force who often makes Russia-friendly assertions. But most importantly, the type of Ukraine military jet in question was a ground-attack jet that can neither fly as high nor as fast as a civilian aircraft. Ground-attack jets need to fly relatively slowly in order to see and destroy tanks and they require fast fighter jets to give them protection. It would have been impossible for a ground-attack jet to kill everybody on board MH17.

But why doesn’t the news media refute these lies? Because that’s not their job. Newspapers and TV stations are businesses struggling for attention in an internet age with declining readership/viewership. They are not a public service and countering all the lies and mistakes would require hiring extra staff at a time when budgets are shrinking, and it probably wouldn’t lead to any extra “eyeballs”. We have to do it ourselves but we don’t. We don’t search for the truth because the lie is convincingly packaged with so-called experts, it’s a much more entertaining story and, in the case of MH17, many Malaysians wanted it to be a Ukraine jet because any kind of tension with Russia would have been utterly terrifying. Disinformation steps into the void.

Campaigns of disinformation led by armies of internet trolls might seem like a modern thing, and yet perhaps a form of it has always been here. Disinformation stories are always so much more fun than the truth. They are simply better stories, and we all love a good story. I became aware of this when I was researching on the internet for a book I’ve been writing about, set in the 1890s. The internet is an amazing thing and every day, old newspaper archives are being uploaded. With a quick Google search, I can now read dozens of old newspapers as I search for information on a particular story.

I was searching for information on a tiny event that happened in present day Bangladesh back in 1894, in the early years of a global telegraph network. An English woman died in dramatic circumstances and it was reported in newspapers around the world but each time slightly differently. She had been married the day before and died in her husband’s arms, she was not married, she was married to a heartless older man, the older man wept inconsolably over her grave, her mother was present, her mother was not present, and so on. When I read these newspaper stories, I expected the truth because newspapers are supposed to report the facts, but what I found was an abundance of different versions, each one vying to be a better and more heart-wrenching story. There was no truth and facts were merely tools for telling a good story. The “truth” was whatever stirred the reader’s feelings the most, what moved them emotionally, and what confirmed their prejudices. In this case, the bravery and nobility of the English compared to the comical incompetence of the “natives”. After that, I decided not to believe anything I found in these old newspapers.

Now we live in the internet age and we can try to discover the truth and the facts, but we don’t. Instead, we invariably choose the better story. For instance, 9-11 was an inside job with controlled explosions detonated by the CIA/Mossad/the cast of Sesame Street (take your pick according to your prejudices). That’s a convincingly exciting story. The truth, on the other hand, is boring. Disinformation steps into the void.

Is it my imagination or has 2016 been an awful year? I need an escape. Something that my diminished ringgit can afford.
Mr RM Low

2016 has been a difficult year so far. All the marvels of Malaysia’s continuing troubles have been recently made even more exciting by a collapse in our currency. There was Brexit, the election of Donald Trump and the deaths of several celebrities that began with the loss of David Bowie. I think we deserve a break from the difficulties and, fortunately, one has arrived. May I suggest you check out a new BBC nature documentary series called Planet Earth II? It’s narrated by David Attenborough and has some of the most astonishing camera work imaginable. It can help to remind us that there is a whole world out there filled with the wonders of nature. So please check out Planet Earth II. And if that doesn’t work for you, then there’s a new Star Wars movie coming very soon. We all deserve a break.

Reprinted with the kind permission of