Podcast: A Post Truth World | Interview With Matthew d’Ancona
When prestigious dictionaries such as the Oxford Dictionary and Macquarie Dictionary list ‘fake news’ and ‘post-truth’ as their words of the year, you know this indeed has become an issue.
Tech giants are just starting to wake up to the dangers of this phenomenon but there is a lot more at stake here than just technology. It has singlehandedly corrupting our minds as well. At a time when trust in institutions is at its lowest point, fake news has become perhaps just a consequence of all this.
Fake news is certainly nothing new and has always been used as a tool of propaganda by governments, but ex-editor of the Sunday Telegraph and NY Times/Guardian columnist Matthew d’Ancona argues that this new paradigm feels different, that technology has changed the language and the way we think and see things. It’s a post-truth reality, one where lies matter even less, a landscape ravaging both the left and right. We sat down with Matthew to explore why fake news is just getting started, how Russia and other nations states are enjoying success with this deployment and how we need to be mindful that this is an issue that affects everyone, not just the conservatives.
Post-Truth: The New War on Truth and How to Fight Back is out now through Penguin