[TLDR (too long didn’t read): This Reader is about the frequent deceptions created by statistics and by the media and the implications their influence has on human rights. For a quick overview, just read the bolded text].
[Deception comes from many sources and in many forms and shapes (with some exceptions, of course, also excusing my possible over-simplifications here)].
First: Statistics
Both the scientists and all of us know that numbers are often unreliable or fake (Boaventura de Sousa Santos)
-“He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp-posts… for support rather than illumination”. (Andrew Lang, 1844-1912)
-To use the classic example of the pie chart: How big is the pie? How is it being sliced? And then: Who is slicing it and who is eating what slices…?
1. We like to disguise or adorn with graphs and statistics all facts we do not know or understand well, especially when it comes to the relative efficacy of different social policies. We trust in science but, these days, scientists often trust that their findings will confirm the statistics… (B. de Sousa) Yes, statistics can be provided on demand. For so long, all of us have been used to behave by up-to-the-third-digit-behind-the-comma, that we have become convincible by bogus percentages, by trumped figures and by wishful extrapolations. (Politika) This is why, it is often facetiously said about statistics that those suffering from the reported facts could not care less about being the zero-comma-x-percent of a given probability since that does not preclude their human rights (HR) being trampled and even them dying anyway. (Mariano Ciafardini)
2. Widespread complains about data being insufficient are, in fact, biasedly over-emphasized, particularly when it comes to draw actionable conclusions about the well documented increased levels of inequality, vulnerabilities, HR violations, and insecurities. The continued focus on data gaps attempts to provide the false impression that the lack of progress (and even the retrogression) on HR issues is due to a lack of proper information and analysis, therefore offering an over-used alibi for policy inaction. There is plenty of evidence around already that supports deteriorating HR violation trends, so no more data are needed to actively address the widely perceived violations claim holders experience first-hand.
3. It is also essential to recognize that knowledge is inherently socially embedded. Hence, there is a concrete risk that the top-down search for more and more data actually contributes to a reduction of meaningful knowledge. Indeed, the current emphasis on ‘data mining’ contributes to the reduction rather than the increase in the direct participation of claim holders primarily affected by HR violations –this, in blatant contradiction with the centrality that community experiential knowledge ought to have in designing public policies and interventions.* (Stefano Prato)
*: In this context, it is also essential to counteract the bias of so-called scientific knowledge that underestimates the potential contribution of different knowledge systems, including indigenous peoples’ and local communities’ knowledge, practices and ways of knowing. (S. Prato)
4. [Mind you, it is not only statistics, but also is algorithms, Big Data and self-learning artificial intelligence… that are more-and-more setting the course of development (and of HR) these days. The numbers speak for themselves –and this has been going on for years. Big Data talk today, tells us it is real ‘wise men’ that are behind it –so it is fair for them (it) to decide what to do. Today, between the lines, the merchants say: “It is no longer us who decide. We are no longer the ones who make up the numbers. We implement our actions based on the overwhelming power of Big Data”. (Glauco Benigni, Shoshana Zubov)].
Second: The mainstream media and their ‘politically correct’ slander and smears (Jose Steinsleger)
-If you do not read the newspaper you are uninformed, if you do read the newspaper you are misinformed. (Mark Twain)
5. The ultimate objective of disinformation in mainstream media is not so much making us believe in an alternative truth (truth will always be fragile and easy to dismantle), but making it impossible for us to know the truth without realizing that those in power are hiding the facts that would give them away. Due to this, instead of wasting time refuting conspiracy theories, we must insist on, over-and-over, hammering on all facts impinging on HR. (Jose Torreblanca)
6. The utilization of the mass media that purport to ‘inform’, allows information to always flow in one sense, i.e., from power to the masses. In a subtle and silent, inapparent way, money-power allows the robotic manipulation of people’s understanding, desires and dreams, of the ways the public opinion is to interpret reality, never letting us know the ultimate intentions of the economic system. (Henri Laborit, Louis Casado)
7. So, in journalism, the honest journalist gets paid for voicing the opinion s/he has; the dishonest journalist is paid for her or him voicing an opinion that is not hers or his. (Jules and Edmond Goncourt)
8. Informative vs interpretative journalism:** Interpretative journalism has unfortunately been more lucrative as an ideological activity. Paid advertising sustains big media and news agencies. ‘Opinions’ are in the hand of powerful editors and their ‘circle of friends’ with whom they coincide ideologically. Columnists and broadcasters (who often assimilate with the ideas of their employers) have made us believe that journalism must and can be objective –as if this were possible (and not a cynic position…).
**: It is for sure bewildering that those journalists who use sharp dissident words, including when denouncing HR violations, are called extremists while those who yield to the force of powerful capital are invariably called moderates. This proves on which side journalists-as-opinion-makers really are… (Jorge Majfud)
9. It is confrontational journalism and the underground dissident press that are left to impinge on the consciousness of the people encouraging their social mobilization. In the words of Amy Goodman, “Journalists ought to go where the silence is; give voice to those who have been forgotten, abandoned and/or hit by the powerful”.
10. On a day-to-day basis, we are thus presented with a caricature of the world as seen by those that wield power. No surprise historians have despised journalists. The incompatibility of good journalism with the powers-that-be has become clearer and clearer in the last decade (little else can explain the absence of denunciations of HR abuses). Look at Edward Snowden and Julian Assange… After they die, they will be recognized by history as the two bravest and most honest professionals. As the founder of the El Pais newspaper in Spain said: “In times of dictatorship, journalism cannot be neutral”. Dictators are ruthless with the dissident press. Being ‘the voice of the voiceless’ continues to be an ethical imperative. (Juan Pablo Cardenas)
11. At the end of the day the ‘political center’ is defined by those who receive the bulk of their information on political and social issues from main stream commercial media sources.*** To be a part of centrist thinking you have to accept the rules of the theater. Once you exit the theater you are no longer an asset to the corporate media. (Marc Ash)
***: Take two examples: Notice how corporate media prefer to focus on race, and dodges the issue of class. (Norman Solomon). The extreme Right does not only exist but, intriguingly, public TV channels continue to give it headline coverage. (B. de Sousa) (Think Trump)
12. Indeed, there is a growing lament that wisdom, imagination and virtue are lost when messages double, info halves, knowledge quarters, and noise-without-origin, without-quality-and-purpose is everywhere. The question is how to overcome this downward spiral…
Third: Social media
-Social media is ‘a poisoned chalice’ (Bill Gates) since so many stare more into their video screens rather than into their own souls. (Dan Brown)
Not all opinions ought to matter
13. The ‘both-sides-are-right’ myth will end up killing vulnerable people. Let us say it again, and once and for all: Free speech does not mean that you get to say whatever you want, wherever you want without consequences. Freedom of speech must be subjected to stern criticism when such is due so-as to avoid that negative, and among other, so much HR-destructive speech is given a platform. (adapted from Jessica Valenti)
Once the enabler, is internet technology now the destroyer? (Maria Ressa)
14. Social media build divisions of ‘us against them’ in their ubiquitous platforms. It is not a coincidence that divisive, HR-violating leaders perform best on social media. Propaganda has always been around, but personalized-atomized-individual-news-feeds, i.e., tailored ‘news’ to each person’s weakness –this is brand new. Social media are the new gatekeepers NOT protecting the public sphere. Facebook is now the world’s largest distributor of news. Except there’s a catch: lies laced with anger and hate spread faster and further than the boring facts of news. They create a bandwagon effect of artificial consensus –for lies. You say a lie a million times, it becomes a fact. Without facts, you cannot have truth. Without truth, you cannot have trust. Without these, democracy, as we know it, is dead.
15. All around the world, populist digital authoritarians use social media to get elected and, then, they use the formal powers of their posts to cave institutions-in –from within. Then they use both social media and their power to attack the truth-tellers. Social media is now a behavior modification system, and we are Pavlov’s dogs. There is one crucial question every citizen in a democracy needs to answer: What are you willing to sacrifice for the truth? (M. Ressa a behavior modification system)
Claudio Schuftan, Ho Chi Minh City
Your comments are welcome at schuftan@gmail.com
All Readers are available at www.claudioschuftan.com
Postscript/Marginalia
-I do not make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts. (Will Rogers)
–The deviously promoted technique of ‘social marketing’ focuses on top-down communications that address behavior modification, not at all fostering informed choices. Social marketing does not care to understand what really motivates people to change.