Can We Separate Political Fact from Opinion?
Whether you love him or hate him, you have to hand it to the Trump campaign. No other politician has so successfully sowed distrust in the American information system while elevating individuals with questionable motives above formerly considered authoritative sources. While the rise in misinformation used to be a comical grouping of memes and satirical conspiracy theory videos, the impending election and dangerously divisive issues make our inability to discern the truth a harrowing concern.
You’ve likely had a conversation across the aisle with someone that disagrees with one of your opinions. It starts innocently enough with a throw-away comment about some recent event, then quickly devolves into both sides claiming the other is a follower of “fake news.” Both participants, the left and right, progressives and conservatives, have been guilty of displaying fiction for fact, but it’s not their fault.
Consider how we get our information in the first place: the news. Yellow journalism and sensationalism are not modern problems, rather the virtual accessibility of the medium allows anyone to be a contributor, anchor, or passenger seat talk show host. Look no further than the conspiracy identity QAnon to understand how far this can be taken by persistent individuals.
Even those publications at the top have their biases, but in the hypercharged state of contention, the left and right seem to be moving even further apart, more focused on disproving the legitimacy of the other as opposed to sharing the facts. In fact, the Associated Press, often the starting point for most news articles, is slightly off-center of both total reliability and neutrality.
If the news cannot be trusted, what about our tailored communities on social media? Friends, family, and the talking heads we consider to be accurate must, at the very least, have a difference of opinion that can both expand perspectives and introduce new facts to an argument. Or not.
Social media will serve you whatever content keeps you on their platform longest, which typically means sensational stories that align with your current viewpoint. In today’s political climate, that translates to support for your stance and disparagement of the opposition in hyperbolic terms.
The rise in popularity of deepfakes, and the technology to make them, continues to blur the lines between reality and satire on social media as well. The Trump campaign is already capitalizing on this gray area by sharing a video of opponent Joe Biden sleeping during an interview which was quickly proven to be edited.
One Pew Research Center article notes that “Americans view made-up news as a very big problem for the country than identify terrorism, illegal immigration, racism and sexism that way. Additionally, nearly seven-in-ten U.S. adults (68%) say made-up news and information greatly impacts Americans’ confidence in government institutions, and roughly half (54%) say it is having a major impact on our confidence in each other.” Also, one’s political position influences what they consider fact and opinion, further diluting major discussions such as racism, sexism, and economic inequalities.
With the news and your immediate community failing to provide you with the strict facts, you attempt to take the next step in research: visiting a search engine. Most Internet users turn to this channel for anything from schooling to home improvement, yet in looking up a recent event or decision you are more likely fed tailored results based on your history and location than the legitimate answer.
Search engines use proprietary and highly complicated algorithms to scan millions of sources and determine what best fits a query. One of the ways in which it does that is by narrowing the options based on what it thinks you want to hear. For instance, if you live in a liberal city and your search history leans to the progressive left, a query beginning with “climate change” will end with options that support it as a body of scientific thought. The same query by an older conservative in a rural area would return rather different results.
When digital research fails, we turn to what we consider the definitive source of knowledge: education. What we learned in grade school through university must be true, especially since it serves as our foundation for understanding the political and social landscape. Yet even that area is both inaccurate and under attack.
The school system has long been a symptom of systemic issues that designates resources and funding to predominately white suburbs over inner-city schools. From schoolwork that favors those privileged to have computers, Wi-Fi, and printers at home to textbooks that adapt history based on where they were published, we often leave the educational system on largely uneven footing.
The truly Orwellian concern in this area, however, comes from White House executive orders that shroud their motivations behind a guise of patriotism. President Trump recently announced that Critical Race Theory and mention of White Privilege or unconscious bias should no longer be used in government training programs. Going a step further, his administration has released details on the “Patriotic Education” which claims to be a “pro-American curriculum that celebrates the truth about our nation’s great history.”
But history is not always pleasant. The amount of history that would have to be rewritten through a lens in which the American government (and not necessarily the American people) was justifiable in their actions would be a major, appalling task.
Where do we go from here? In only a few weeks we will cast ballots for the highest levels of government, and yet the majority of Americans cannot agree on political fact versus opinion. Leaders have always been divisive; it’s how they encourage a base to tow the party line. It was up to us as American citizens to do the research and debate the issues. Our inability to uncover shared understanding, however, is quickly becoming a battleground not only in the academic sense but a violent physical one.
