#BTEditorial – Adapting to a changing environment

The current generation does not possess the experience of having lived through a pandemic. What is happening at this moment is new to us all.

We in Barbados, for the most part, have lived a fairly protected and sheltered post-independence existence. The sacrifices of champions who fought through the depressive years of slavery and colonialism, and then created an early independence roadmap for us to follow, based on industriousness and pride, are partly responsible for many of our gains as a society.

Their commitment to country, to bettering the path of those yet unborn, and to do so in an ordered fashion, are said to be the Bajan way. It has impressed and continues to impress those who visit our shores and those who choose to make Barbados their home.

We accept that life is not static and that progress necessitates change. Some of those changes will be positive and others may not, depending on whose lens we use to view such developments.

The Internet and social media have brought the world to our doorsteps, educating us on people and issues in ways that the traditional media has been unable to achieve.

At the same time, the unfiltered saturation of information from credible and from unsubstantiated sources has given us many different perspectives on issues.

Long before the COVID-19 pandemic, academics were expressing concern about what has been described as “post-truth”. Oxford Dictionaries selected it as the international word of the year in 2016.

Academics defined post-truth as “relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal beliefs”.

What has been occurring in recent years is that information platforms and those who control the levers, are appealing to people’s instincts and to their desire to find information that gels with perspectives they already hold.

As a result, people are caring less about valid facts. They want the comfort of views that align with theirs, and this stand is making them vulnerable to accepting and acting on misinformation.

The Pew Research Centre in the United States raised an important question about a proliferation of doctored narratives spread by people and countries who want to achieve particular objectives.

It queried: “In the next ten years, will trusted methods emerge to block false narratives and allow the most accurate information to prevail in the overall information ecosystem? Or will the quality and veracity of information online deteriorate due to the spread of unreliable, sometimes even dangerous, socially destabilizing ideas?”

These are valid questions to ask in 2021 as governments, businesses, health care providers, educational institutions and individuals grapple with achieving ways and charting an ideal course of action on how to address the COVID-19 pandemic and all the turmoil it has created.

What occurred in St Vincent and the Grenadines over the past 48 hours is an ominous sign of the influence that unfiltered information can have on public opinion. The very visceral and violent outcomes that can occur are there for all to see.

That Caribbean Community (CARICOM) member nation is among the first in the region to take a legislative approach to the vaccination of at least frontline workers in the public sector.

Some may argue that Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves has been too hasty and should have used moral and other suasion to convince workers that it in their best interest to be vaccinated.

Was there enough public information about the risks posed by having such a large segment of the population unvaccinated? Is the threat of another wave of the disease and the damage it could do to the economy of St Vincent and the Grenadines not clear enough to citizens already under immense pressure from COVID-19 and volcanic eruptions?

What does all this mean for us in Barbados? It may be argued that we are dealing with a passive population that is not prone to violent mass protests as has occurred in our neighbouring island.

The world in which we currently exist is one in which people have become less patient. They see COVID-19 protests in Europe and in the United States. They are being bombarded by half-truths, misinformation and lies, in some cases.

The conflict between truth and misinformation will be a constant fight. COVID-19 vaccines have been taken by hundreds of millions of people, but some will still spread talking points that it was created to harm black people.

Tom Rosenstiel, author, director of the American Press Institute and senior fellow at the Brookings Institution was quoted as saying, “Whatever changes [social media] companies make, and whatever innovations fact-checkers and other journalists put in place, those who want to deceive will adapt to them.

“Misinformation is not like a plumbing problem you fix. It is a social condition, like crime, that you must constantly monitor and adjust to. Since as far back as the era of radio and before, as Winston Churchill said, ‘A lie can go around the world before the truth gets its pants on’.”