Not a week goes by in Jordan without a rumor or a semi-learned
exposition spelling negativity spreading over social media.
The spread of social networks has given platform to
the voiceless, and basically everybody with internet access. It also enables
individuals to spread false information, rumors, conspiracy theories, and
baseless claims, which thrive in an environment of information uncertainty.
اضافة اعلان
Social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter,
WhatsApp, and Instagram enable users to build an e-community that alienates some
through filter bubbles (an intellectual isolation that results when a website
algorithm selectively guesses what information users would like to see based on
information about their location, past click-behavior and search history).
It has been argued in the pertaining literature that
uncertainty lowers public expectations and fosters pessimism. Losing optimism
and espousing pessimism is not without a price, for these two feelings move
supply and demand faster than any other development.
Negative statements and news spread real fast. A
recent study of data on Twitter during 2006-2017 showed that 3 million people
spread 126,000 rumors, and false news reached more people and diffused faster
than truthful ones; the top 1 percent of
false news diffused to between 1,000 and
100,000 individual accounts, whereas the truth seldom spread to more than
1,000.
According to Stuart Soroka, a UCLA communications professor, humans may neurologically or physiologically be predisposed to focus on negative information because the potential costs of negative information far outweigh the potential benefits of positive information.
The impact of false news and pessimistic rumors
about the social, political, and economic spheres cannot be but negative. It not
only sabotages the welfare of the nation, it also derails any attempt at reform
as trust between the government and the people erode.
Studies show that negative rumors, coupled with
social media, often produce undesirable consequences. For example, in a small
town in Mexico, in August 2018, a WhatsApp rumor claiming that child abductors
were collecting human organs led to a vigilante mob of more than 100 people
burning two men alive.
A growing body of research shows that humans tend to
prioritize negative over positive news. According to Stuart Soroka, a UCLA
communications professor, humans may neurologically or physiologically be
predisposed to focus on negative information because the potential costs of
negative information far outweigh the potential benefits of positive
information.
This view is also asserted in the field of
behavioral economics. There is ample evidence of people’s bias in favor for negative over positive news in Jordan. All
one has to do is to release news of doom and almost everyone will start quoting
and spreading the falsity.
Rumors and misinformation flourish with the spread
of social networks and situations where there are high uncertainties and
ambiguities. The economy, with its multitude of issues, and being a highly
complex and dynamic system that is constantly and continuously affected by new
inputs, is the field most impacted by rumors and misinformation.
The economy and its markets, show more than any
other field such incidences of self-fulfilled prophecies. If enough people
state that an economy will collapse, it will collapse. Financial markets that
are highly speculative can become rife with rumors and misinformation that lead
to unfounded assertions and costly decisions.
The same is true for organizations and institutions.
Surprisingly, when someone starts a rumor about the
economy, very few in Jordan attempt to counter its claims, and even fewer
voices come out from the public sector, which is not surprising. One reason is
that decision makers may not be yet aware of the power of social networks;
another, less likely, reason is that they do not know how to address the
falsities; and a third reason could be pure lack of concern, (this is not my
business, let someone deal with it).
No matter what the reason is, this is a new era that
requires new thinking and fast action. The sooner the better.
The writer is CEO of the Envision Consulting Group and
former minister of state for economic affairs.
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