How Tech is Helping to Annihilate Truth

I am an optimist about the positive impact brought by technology. It made our life easier and better in so many ways. However, we must not forget technology is just a tool invented by humans, and as any tool, it is agnostic. We are so immersed in our tech driven world that we are not noticing its dark side looming upon us.

"When you look at the dark side, careful you must be. For the dark side looks back."

At this right moment, state actors around the world — most notably Russia and to a lesser extent China, Iran and North Korea — are using the Internet, social networks and smartphones to wreak havoc in the liberal world order built after the second world war. This asymmetric and silent war being waged online leaves no traces, spills no blood and costs orders of magnitude less than conventional wars. It is actually reminiscent of the strategies used by fascists, nazis and communists from the 1930s to the 1980s.

The strategy of autocratic states is to shake the fundamental pillars of western societies — democracy, rule of law, rational thinking, freedom of speech and individualism — through the inventions and technologies we created and rely on.

You might not have noticed but you are already becoming a casualty of this war, in which the main objective is to kill truth. For instance, how many times have you forwarded messages or posted news that you found out later they were hoaxes or not true? I personally…