Filtering fact from fiction in media

After free and fair election, press freedom is the next most pressing issue that concerns the Western powers when it comes to evaluating the socio-political condition of their client nations in the South. Then come human rights, gender rights and equity and so on as a matter of course. However, on the occasion of this year's World Press Freedom Day, the UNESCO has described it 'as a day of support for media which are targets for the restraint, or abolition, of press freedom'. But when is 'press freedom' target of the powers that be? Obviously, it is when the Press or the media tell or try to tell the truth. And who constitute the audience that hear the truth? Of course, it is the mass people. In other words, so long as the Press or the media tell people the truth, their freedom becomes the target of the vested interests which want to restraint or even abolish the former, as pointed out by the UNESCO.

True, this year, according to the Reporters Sans Frontieres (Reporters Without Borders), its main index has fallen to its lowest-ever level in the 23 years that it has been tracking press freedom. The RSF in its annual ranking report noted that the situation of press freedom has worsened in the US since President Donald Trump took office in January. No one is surprised because in the topsy-turvy world under president Trump, press freedom cannot expect to remain unaffected. Small wonder that the RSF in the present case is expressing concern about press freedom in a country that is not a southern post-colonial country but one that was considered one of the champions of democracy and press freedom. However, it was also not hundred per cent free under Trump's predecessor, Joe Biden. The US media was then either not telling or not willing to tell the truth about what was happening, say, in Gaza of Palestine. Should the American people not know the truth? Interestingly, the mainstream media do not seem to be willing to tell the truth even though there appears to be no government restrictions on what to report to the media or not. On the contrary, the mainstream print and electronic media seem to be engaged in what American linguist and public intellectual, Noam Chomsky, and Edward S. Herman tried to say in their book, "Manufacturing Consent." In fact, the very title of their book says it all. In Third World countries, it is easy to identify the enemy or enemies of press freedom. The restrictive laws such as the Digital Security Act (DSA) 2018 is one such law enacted during the previous autocratic regime in Bangladesh. Though, initially, it was said that the law was designed to ensure digital security by holding those committing cybercrime to account, the real purpose of the government became clear with the passage of time.

The Act was one of the worst legal instruments in history in Bangladesh to crush dissent and press freedom. Understandably, the press in Bangladesh then survived by self-censoring. Then there was also a section of the media that wanted to tell the truth. They faced the consequences that include closure of those media outlets or houses. There was yet another section that was too willing to support autocracy and its narrative to suppress dissent wherever expressed and in whatever form. The social media, in particular, became a major target of the so-called DSA. Such attacks on press freedom by the government in a less developed country situated in the South are unsurprising. The formula answer why is it so is the lack of the social and political institutions that nurture democracy and all that goes with it including press freedom.

But that argument does not apply to countries with highly developed social and legal institutions like the US. Also, the  Press itself is censoring itself. If anything, this development is alarming. Journalists in the less developed countries consider Western standard of journalism ideal. In that case, deterioration of the Press's ethical standard in the Western press may appear as new normal to many uncritical media workers in the South. The phenomenon of Bangladesh's media becoming subservient to the autocracy can be taken as a case in point. In modern times, ideas, good or harmful, are propagated instantly for others to, especially in the Third World, to copy and paste on their conditions uncritically. For obvious reasons, there's no mechanism to separate truth from fiction. In fact, with the advent of AI the task has become harder. It would be worthwhile to note at this point the widespread use of devices like chatbot and AI to generate false contents that raised false and imaginary allegations and propaganda about the safety and security of the minority communities in Bangladesh. It is against this backdrop, the UN-declared World Press Freedom Day is being observed with the theme of 'Reporting in the Brave New World -The Impact of Artificial Intelligence on Press Freedom and the Media. While welcoming the rosy vision of  a Brave New World, one may also consider the danger that AI poses to humanity. It is not only the common people who, driven by the fear of job loss, might consider AI as a blight, not a boon. But such fear of retrenchment need not come true. However, there are other fears that even experts in the field have expressed that needs to be taken seriously. One might recall here the dystopian,1932 novel by the English author Aldous Huxley. It was about controlling humans through genetic engineering and creating  a society to suit their purpose. But given its intelligence and the power to mimic human's thinking process, it can  do things better and faster. That means, AI poses a worse kind of dystopia than one might imagine. Since media are about telling a true story, the danger is that unless safely used, it can cause serious disruptions in society. International bodies should be able to create safeguards against abuse of AI and  help protect media against misinformation as well as disinformation. Filtering fact from fiction is important.

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