1:00PM
Let’s say I’m a public figure who wants to hide something. It can be something that I’ve done that it’s illegal, something immoral, or something about which I personally feel ashamed—it could even be something about which I feel protective and worried it might get ruined by too many people knowing about it. Regardless, there are many things I may want to keep secret.
Assuming I’m a public figure, that means I will know a lot of people, and more so, a lot of people will know me and know me quite well. They also will probably want to know me even better than they do. Therefore, they will probably try to learn as much as they can about it. If I’m a public figure that is making decisions that impact their lives, even more so.
So how do I stop them from finding out this secret?
First, I can try to hide it. I think this is the strategy of most of us: put it in a place where people won’t find it. While this may work for an Easter egg hunt with a few kids, when we talk about thousands or millions of people looking for something with lots of time, money, and energy, this strategy may prove futile.
Second, we could lie about it. We could say that it’s Y when it’s really X. We can say something is bigger/smaller than it is, longer/shorter, a different color, a different time, with different people, etc. We can add new details, change existing details, or remove details. These are all lies about the thing itself. Again, if people have enough time, money, and energy, they could probably sift through that and find the secret, although it probably will take more time than if we just hid it.
Third, we could lie about other people’s secrets. We could use all of the tactics from the previous paragraph, except doing this for many other people. We can lie about a secret of Alice, a secret of Bob, one of Charlie. If the people want to investigate the veracity of those secrets, they start to use their time, money, and energy on uncovering those secrets and not mine. By the time they realize that those were lies about the other people, I can create more lies about other people, sending them in a long, expensive spiral to find the truth. Even when they do discover that, I can still bury myself in lies, so that they have to spend more time, money, and energy uncovering my truths.
I believe that fake news and disinformation is a tactic to hide our secrets. We lie about other people to protect things that we don’t want the world to know. If we are rich and famous, then we may do this to a larger extent, employing people to do this on our behalf.
I believe what scares us the most is showing our humanity to others. I believe we need to start having the courage to do so.
1:10PM
