A god helps me think through information disorder
Or the many ways to fight this central challenge
As a kid, one of my favourite gods was Narasimha, and I would often beg my mother to tell me his story. What child wouldn’t find a god who is half-lion and half-man fascinating? Especially one who kills an evil demon who cannot be killed either indoors or outdoors, during day or night, nor on the ground or in the sky, nor by a living or nonliving entity?
The answer is in the story: Narasimha kills the demon Hiranyakashipu at the threshold of his house, at twilight, on his lap (neither on the ground or in the sky) by ripping his guts out with his long and sharp fingernails, weapons that are neither animate nor inanimate.
(Thankfully, my mother left out the gory details of his death.)
The Narasimha story is an oddly perfect way to think about one of the central challenges of our times, the one we framed in last week’s issue as information pollution (information disorder, misinformation, ‘fake news’).
This is so for at least two reasons:
First, Narasimha is the answer to a completely novel problem: a demon who cannot be vanquished by any existing means. The situation is so dire that Vishnu, one of the main gods of the Hindu pantheon, has to become Narasimha in one of his avatars.
The half-man, half-lion is a unique solution to a unique problem.
Our current information ecosystem is a bit like the demon Hiranyakashipu in that it is unfamiliar and truly terrifying: we have no easy way to sweep away ‘fake news’, lies, half-truths, manipulated truths, bullshit and propaganda. This is a complex problem, fueled by social media, smartphones, technological advances, and politicians/political parties who’re using this reality to create confusion, anger and hatred to collect votes.
A second reason the Narasimha story is appropriate is because he, like most Hindu deities, has multiple arms. In most depictions, Narasimha has four arms: two to rip the demon to shreds, and one each holding the conch and the discus. But in the illustration above, he has 16 hands. Sixteen!
In our approach to information pollution/disorder, we will likewise need multiple ‘hands’.
In my work over the years, I’ve encountered several approaches to the problem. Near Stanford University where I was a John S. Knight journalism fellow in 2018-19, I met a researcher at the Institute For The Future who counted more than 500 solutions, many of them driven by technology.
To my mind, all of these can be aggregated into five broad approaches. They are:
Technological: work by tech platforms like Facebook and Google; firms dedicated to increase trust and security online; design that isn’t optimised to addict one to phones, and so on.
Media-driven: digital publishing and journalism, responsible advertising, fact-checking and media literacy (what we at BOOM do), etc.
Academic: research and education.
Policy-driven/political: policies by governments worldwide to halt the spread of information pollution, responsible laws drafted by political parties, etc.
Citizen-driven: people-driven efforts, NGOs, moral and ethical approaches.
If you look at it this way, a god would need at least five arms to deal with information pollution.
Another easy framework to illustrate this is through a Venn diagram, like this one:
So there you have it.
Last week, I argued that we need to frame the problem of ‘fake news’ as one of information pollution or information disorder, and this week, I showed you multiple approaches to the problem. In the coming weeks, we’ll look at fascinating stories, case studies and dive deeper. The goal, of course, is to make us all immune to the toxic information ecosystem.
Reader feedback
Several people had thoughts to offer after reading the previous newsletter.
In response to a question I posed, a reader on Facebook had a counter question. I had asked, “So what was your Year Zero, when you realised that we’re living in a world that has been altered radically by these forces?”
He said that I must:
allow for those who haven't yet got to Year Zero… so should be asking: What was/will be your Year Zero!
I should have picked up on that dear reader. Among other things, writing is also about anticipating questions in the minds of the reader.
Another reader, Bhavana Rao, asked if she could trust any source (including this newsletter!) and provided the answer herself:
Only answer is strengthening inner logic and train yourself to ask the right questions - of anything. I would trust any source that addresses how to think, than what to think…
This is actually a great line for me to use. As in: “I’m attempting to provide readers the tools for how to think rather than telling them what to think.” Thank you!
And finally, Dr D V Badarinath (who also happens to be my uncle) emailed back saying:
Hope we will get pointers to spot the pollutants as you will develop the theme.
That’s the whole endeavour uncle. I will do my best!
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Narasimha picture credit: Wikimedia