Misquotation Pandemic and Disinformation Polemic: Mind Pollution by Viral Falsity with Melting Earth

Conceived by SoundEagle🦅ೋღஜஇ in the year during which coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) became a pandemic ravaging humanity, Misquotation Pandemic, Disinformation Polemic and Viral Falsity are three neologisms that aptly reflect the centrality of human behaviour in perpetuating and accelerating not only the spread of communicable diseases via human settlement and migration, but also the dissemination of misquotations and disinformation through social media, news platforms and mass communication, thus polluting the mind, media landscape and information ecosystem to the point of inhibiting or impairing civil discourse, human rights, democratic governance, social cohesion, community psychology, critical thinking, critical consciousness and sociopolitical development. The systemic production and dissemination of misquotations and disinformation are often not merely the result of ignorance, the absence of experience, the lack of acumen, the decline of rectitude, the dearth of morality, the rise of iniquity, the product of mendacity or the upshot of enmity, but also an outcome of the struggle and polarity in socioeconomic, cultural and political domains involving unequal access to and corrupt manipulation of power, information and resources.

The phenomenal rises and impacts of Misquotation Pandemic, Disinformation Polemic and Viral Falsity have been so embedded and pervasive as to render or qualify them as highly corrupting forces and exacerbating factors in the broader sociopolitical environment. The sheer extent and potency of 🧠 Mind Pollution by Viral Falsity 🦠 in atomizing and polarizing people into schismatic and ill-informed individuals, as well as in fomenting and extending people’s misguided, perfidious, disruptive, destructive, provocative, reactionary or counterproductive behaviours into the nooks and crannies of everyday life, have both unveiled and unleashed the language of misperception, cupidity, corruption, deception, antipathy, antagonism, resentment, inequality, identity politics and ideological extremism, often manifesting as dramatic forms of misrepresentation, sensationalism, cognitive bias, selective empowerment, discriminatory practice, invidious policy, historical negationism, social amplification and cultural tribalism — ones that are unflatteringly ill-equipped to address or moderate, but unenviably well-equipped to worsen or contribute to, the wider structural causes of complex, partisan or contested issues, especially those pertaining to homophobia, xenophobia, racism, ageism, sexism, religion, abortion, vaccination, genetic evolution, climate change, the environment, the economy, as well as civil and political rights. The outstanding effects and ramifications of Misquotation Pandemic, Disinformation Polemic and Viral Falsity have become so far-reaching and wide-ranging that they are (im)posing considerable disruptions and existential threats to humanity, as they inject layers of complexity and even intractability to diverse matters pertaining to information literacy, media literacy, sociopolitical impact, sociocultural disturbance, foreign interference, information warfare, knowledge security, social integrity, electoral integrity, media integrity and diversity, as well as conflict resolution, civic engagement, democratic resilience, public health, epidemiological response, sustainable living, environmental protection and ecological crisis.

Many users and consumers have come to depend on information sources not filtered or managed by information professionals, especially when opinion pieces trump factual reporting, when public respect for scientific authority wanes, and when entities proffering and preserving authoritative news and trustworthy information attenuate in number and influence as they are subject to adverse government meddling, sanction and even persecution, or are weakened by dwindling subscriptions and advertising revenues due to the ascendency of social media that allow original contents to be scraped from any sources and shared by users without permission or recompense. Even when information literacy and media literacy are not at issue, the quality, validity and reliability of information sources are themselves increasingly at risk of being undermined whenever media integrity and diversity have been tarnished or compromised by the concentration of media ownership (also known as media consolidation or media convergence) and the formation of media oligopoly or monopoly, all of which can dent the ability of media outlets to serve the public interest and democratic process, to resist institutional corruption within the media system, to withstand economic influence, political clientelism and conflicts of interest, and to curtail excessive instrumentalisation of the media for particular corporate demands, political goals, partisan strategies or sectarian ideologies that are contrary to the democratic role of the media and detrimental to net(work) neutrality.

Polluting the terrains of information landscape and muddying the waters of social discourse, innumerable online sources of misquotations and disinformation use fraudulent techniques and unethical ways to fool users into thinking that dubious blogs, sham news sites, fake accounts, social bots, deepfakes, astroturfing operations and front organizations are legitimate and that the information generated is factual or unbiased. They also play significant roles in shaping (outcomes of) public opinion and social behaviour by acting as incessant and pertinacious influencers, manipulating people on social media platforms, supercharging memes and cultural trends, even limiting free speech, suppressing important messages, stoking animosity, dismantling trust and inducing chaos by creating a deluge of bogus accounts, fake identities, automated messages and social spams to deliver profanity, threats, hate speech, insults, damaging quotations, cyberbullying, clickbaiting, social hacking, malicious links, unsolicited content, misleading claims, fraudulent reviews, fabricated news and conspiracy theories.

In conclusion, as a flawed species causing and worsening (the existential risk of global catastrophe through) the information ecosystem pollution, the world ecological crisis and the sixth mass extinction, it is high time that human beings face the noise and music of the Misquotation Pandemic and Disinformation Polemic causing Mind Pollution by Viral Falsity, so that we may sort ourselves out in the larger scheme of things, and in the natural order. Humankind, the ultimate but flawed being as a whole and on the whole must share the burden and guilt for continually manifesting and festering such predicaments, whose sobering ramifications as well as involute corollaries represent indubitable indicators and fair warnings that humanity as a major force of Nature in the new but brief Anthropocene epoch has indeed lost its sense of proportion and its grasp on perspective to the point of accelerating its own terminal downfall and existential oblivion. We ought to be consistently reminding ourselves that the pale blue dot is being rendered growingly inhospitable by anthropogenic forces, a multitude of which have been intensified as much by human ingenuity and consumption as by human failings, foibles and follies rooted in self-interest, irresponsibility, irrationalities, oversights, prejudices, misbeliefs, misjudgements, misrepresentations and (eco)systemic injustices. It is glaringly clear beyond any shadow of reasonable doubt that if we are indeed interested and invested in having a decent chance of long-term survival, then we must strive towards achieving and instituting acceptable degrees of democratic freedom to be exercised in civil societies free of Mind Pollution by Viral Falsity, which is eminently capable of disrupting or damaging equitable access to and responsible distribution of reliable information, social capital, renewable resources and sustainable lifestyles enjoyable by all and sundry on this finite Earth. In spearheading, renewing or enlarging civic participation, community development and governmental engagement for a better planet, the essential objective or existential directive for improving the long-term survival probability of humanity must be based on critical policies and cooperative principles that value individual life, liberty and creativity whilst ensuring that liberty and creativity are always predicated on responsibility at all levels and manners of living, for liberty and creativity without responsibility are necessarily self-terminating, given that there are fundamental limits and boundaries that must be respected if we are to survive collectively as individuals, cultures, societies and ecologies facing a looming global ecological crisis that will dwarf the pandemic calamity and infodemic falsity.