The problem is people. If they want to believe RM42 billion of 1MDB’s money has disappeared into thin air they will believe it. And they will believe it because it is fun believing it or they are comfortable believing it — just like suicide bombers believe if they blow up a busload of schoolchildren they will be rewarded with more virgins than they can handle and if they take one virgin a night to bed it will be more than two months before they can come back to the first one.
Google has just announced that something needs to be done about Fake News. Umno Youth Leader Khairy Jamaluddin is upset that Pakatan Harapan people are spreading Fake News. Cabinet Minister Salleh Said Keruak is equally unhappy that the Internet is being used as the primary source of Fake News.
Twenty years ago it had been forecasted that the opposition will gain a lot of ground if it takes to the Internet and ‘controls’ the news on the Internet. At that time there were only 280,000 Internet subscribers but one day there will be more than 20 million Internet subscribers so the opposition needs to monopolise the Internet and beat the government in the game of news dissemination. I was one of those who started my own anti-government website in 1997 called ‘Raja Petra’s Homepage’.
Today there are more than 21 million Internet subscribers.
A knife is a useful tool in the kitchen. But a knife can also be a weapon that kills. So it all depends on what you want to use that knife for. And that includes how you use the Internet as well.
How do you stop Fake News on the Internet? You cannot. The problem is not the Internet. The problem is people — just like the problem is not guns but people who kill.
If people want to believe Fake News they will believe Fake News. And even if you ban or close down the Internet people will still listen to Fake News and will believe it.
Thousands of years ago people already believed in God, religion, and so on. Why did they believe in God? Had they ever met God? Did God come down to earth and make his existence known? Had people died and met God and came back to earth to tell the people that they met God so God does exist?
Nothing of that sort. People just believe in God because they want to believe in God. They feel ‘comfortable’ believing in God. They are not comfortable feeling that they are going to die and when they die that is the end of everything, nothing more is going to happen. People need to believe that death is not final or the end but just the beginning. They might live for a few years on earth but after they die they will live on forever in a special place which is far better than this miserable place called earth (or get reincarnated as something or someone better).
So, since birth, people have been indoctrinated into believing something that cannot be proven. And you believe what is comfortable to you, whether it is true or false. There are so many religions and if only one is the true religion that would mean all other religions are Fake News. Muslims insist that Muhammad is the last Prophet of God and that Islam is the true religion. That would mean all the other religions are the result of Fake News.
If what Muslims believe is true, and they insist it is, then Judaism, Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, and many more are all Fake News. Christians, however, will insist their religion is true while all others, Islam included, are Fake News. And Atheists will say all religions, without exception, are Fake News and that God is as real as Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy.
So, Fake News has created many fake religions but those who believe will insist their religion is not fake. In fact, they will insist their religion is true while all the others are Fake News.
So you see, you do not need the Internet to disseminate Fake News. Of course, the Internet is faster so it helps in the dissemination of Fake News. But people have been believing Fake News long before the Internet was invented. And that is why today we have so many different beliefs and religions. It is all because of Fake News.
The problem is people. If they want to believe RM42 billion of 1MDB’s money has disappeared into thin air they will believe it. And they will believe it because it is fun believing it or they are comfortable believing it — just like suicide bombers believe if they blow up a busload of schoolchildren they will be rewarded with more virgins than they can handle and if they take one virgin a night to bed it will be more than two months before they can come back to the first one.
Pakatan Harapan people love Fake News. Their religion is founded on Fake News. They get an erection or orgasm when they read Fake News. Malaysiakini, Malaysian Insight, Malaysia Chronicle, Sarawak Report and the many other opposition sites can say anything, and as long as it is anti-government it will be treated like Moses preaching in the Sermon on the Mount. If people verify what they are told before believing it no one would believe in God and no religion would exist. So the truth is not important, mere belief is. And that is why Pakatan people believe in Fake News.
Raja Petra Kamarudin
– http://www.malaysia-today.net/
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