A Young Journalist's Recourse: Recommended Preface to "Making Truth"

Author ◎ Li Shirley

Lies and falsehoods are the norm in human history, but the speed and breadth with which they are now invading the public sphere is still staggering. I will never forget that on NBC News in January 2017, host Chuck Todd of "Meet the Press" pressed White House adviser Kellyanne R. Conway (Kellyanne Conway), why the Trump team will declare that "this is the most popular presidential inauguration in history", Conway said without shame, this is "alternative facts".

I saw Todd's response was straightforward, "Alternative facts are not facts, but lies."

Public figures blatantly tell lies and create false information, which are accepted by readers and audiences and mistaken for the truth. Such "alternative facts" that go against social ethics and trust have become popular in recent years, and falsehoods have turned into truths. The proliferation of websites affects your public life and mine, and even changes our perception of the world.

The job of a journalist is to seek truth. Today, the serious work of journalists in various countries is facing unprecedented challenges. Absurd rumors and falsehoods have entered the speech market, which not only requires reporters to spend more effort to verify, but also does not ensure that they can defeat the power of false information. For example, wrong health information that the elders take as a guide, brainwashing videos produced by Chinese officials and telling that life in Xinjiang is very good, and even cult-like extreme political opinions, come through various Internet channels like a net. These fallacies or pseudosciences, which can be easily disproved by evidence, have appeared in the social networking sites and social software that we log on to every day, as well as on many platforms called media, in just a few years. Less than natural disasters and viruses.

I think this is the intention of Zhixin to write the book "Making the Truth" - since we are all trapped in this disaster and cannot quickly invent a vaccine for relief, it is better to exercise the ability of autoimmunity.

The approach to immunity is to first understand how the world as we perceive it has been changed. Zhixin tells readers in a complete manner the footprints of his travels to various countries for interviews and investigations over the years. It turns out that many of the contents we see and hear every day are maliciously fabricated without any basis, and are accepted by people without any precaution, while lies. And how the illusion makes different countries, societies, families and individuals pay the price.

Zhixin's career as a reporter is unique. He graduated from the Department of Foreign Affairs of National Chengchi University, worked in venture capital and start-up companies, worked as an assistant reporter in the Taipei office of the Financial Times, and also worked as a reporter for Business Week. He has a mind to pay attention to public affairs. He has participated in action organizations such as g0v. He joined us as a freelance reporter two and a half years ago as the deputy editor-in-chief of the non-profit media "The Reporter".

I served as Zhixin's editor for about six years before and after (and often collaborated with him when he was freelance), and two and a half of them worked closely together, and had the opportunity to understand the long-term problem awareness of this young and excellent reporter. He has always been at the forefront. When most people's associations with innovation and technology are business opportunities, Zhixin is more concerned about how technology can reshape people's worldview. As a result, he has long incorporated disinformation, information warfare, cyber army and other issues into his topic selection perspective, covering Europe, the United States and East Asia.

Interviewing in this emerging field is not easy: the technologies and techniques used by counterfeiters are new and complex, information is difficult to trace across borders, and obtaining evidence is often labor-intensive and a race against time (creators often switch domains or cover up networks) Footprints), and the victims and perpetrators are diverse, and we should always pay attention to information security attacks from hackers during the tracking process.

In addition to overcoming the difficulties of technology and interviews, I think the most valuable thing about Zhixin in dealing with such issues is that he does not coldly describe these fraudulent methods, nor does he write in a general moral attitude. He tries to understand who is the easiest person to jump into. The rabbit holes in Alice in Wonderland? How did these digital rabbit holes come about? How are force fields down the rabbit hole created and distorted?

At the beginning of the book "Making the Truth", Zhixin takes readers to see the process of 19-year-old jihadists joining ISIS. His method is to interview the mother of the jihadist face-to-face, allowing readers to follow the mother's questions and thoughts, and understand that most jihadists are attracted by information such as life, entertainment, wealth, and identity (accounting for 97%), and then Only because of the extreme hate information (3%), the information gradually cut off young people's connection with the outside world, allowing them to walk into the cave where terrorist organizations call for jihad.

He also takes readers to the Republic of North Macedonia. I remember that two years ago, when The Reporter was dealing with the topic "Transnational Net Army and Their Origin", Zhixin found a "net army coach" Selkoski from the Republic of North Macedonia. Said he was the one who helped Trump win the election by accident (the 2016 US election was influenced by a lot of disinformation from Russia and North Macedonia, and even if it was proved to have influenced the election, it would be hard to catch up).

Instead of directly criticizing them, Zhixin keeps her original words and lets readers try to understand how "manipulating the truth" has become a huge business in countries around the world. Because of the open-mindedness of his interviews, readers can gain a more three-dimensional and profound understanding of being a net army in a country with high unemployment, not always driven by conspiracy theories, net army said: "I know this may not be the most A moral profession, but it really changed my life.” And net army coach Serkoski even reminded Taiwanese readers in his interview: “You have to be suspicious of everything and be careful about everything.”

Because of enough empathy and curiosity, readers can follow a reporter's perspective and witness the complexity and diversity of the "truth-making" ecological chain.

In this ecological chain, there are political parties, politicians, flanking organizations, information warfare businessmen who use data manipulation, and collaborators such as self-media and content farms. At the bottom of the ecological chain are vulnerable people who are easily influenced by extreme opinions. The spectrum of "truth making" ranges from mockery, unintentionally forwarded misinformation, fake news that mixes true and false, to fake news created by deliberately spreading prejudice and hatred.

"The Making of Truth" is a reporter's earnest pursuit and accumulation for many years. When I read this book, I could feel the logic and methods of Zhixin's efforts to outline and dismantle the maker. He hopes that readers will know that those clubs, fan pages, The stickers, and the usual narrative of the producers, are step-by-step how to produce disinformation, shape everyone's worldview, and paralyze democracy.

In the dark age where false information and trend-setting methods are constantly evolving and escalating, I hope this book can help more readers have judgment and vigilance, and I also hope that readers can find trusted media, reporters, opinion leaders, and train them. Your ability to think critically and identify yourself increases your immunity to "fake".

(The author of this article is the editor-in-chief of The Reporter)