“Lies Have Short Legs” is a proverb with which we grew up, were raised, and educated. In traditional values, truth is considered profound, while a lie is shallow. The fight for truth is always of a noble nature, while a lie is something lowly, malicious, and deceitful. This is confirmed by folk wisdom.
In today’s society, lies are increasingly becoming refined, indirect, unobtrusive, and sweet. From “You look younger than your age” to “Not everything is black or white; some things are gray.” Sometimes, a lie serves a purpose—it spares someone from worry, gives someone false hope, or helps someone avoid danger. Meša Selimović, summarizing the essence of life in one sentence, wrote: “I never suspected that a lie could prevent evil.”
But what if a lie has a secure job and a good income?
In the modern age, technology has employed lies, and they generate profit. Modern media daily instills fear in the public, produces and spreads lies, and creates controversies to increase revenue. As media evolved and took advantage of the internet, the way income is generated has significantly changed. Now, income depends on page views or impressions, forcing bloggers to produce as much content as possible to increase advertising space on websites. This reduces the quality of articles, as they exist merely to gain page views. The process involves writing controversial headlines or spreading lies and “leaking” documents.
Manipulation starts with smaller blogs. Advertisers thus have the ability to influence what larger news outlets publish, and so the flow of content moves along a predictable trajectory—from smaller to larger.
For a basic understanding of media exploitation, imagine a chain where each link represents a media outlet. At the top are major media companies, and at the bottom are bloggers from local web pages. Advertisers start with bloggers at the bottom of the chain, as they verify facts minimally. Once the story begins, they move on to the next link in the chain. Each subsequent link assumes that, since the story is circulating on other sites, the advertisement must be true and verified, thus perpetuating the story without fact-checking. Through this process, advertisers create significant noise, even reaching national newspapers and media. Whether the information comes from a fake email or the ultimate goal is to sell a book or raise charitable donations, the deception works in the same way.
The economics of revenue generation are clear: Revenue = advertising x traffic.
Conveying a message in any form is crucial for successful advertising. Regardless of the type of page display, the advertisement appears on the site and is visible to the audience, which is the most important factor. Understanding this mechanism, bloggers do everything they can to increase traffic. Essentially, entrepreneurs create and publish news.
The very business model of news blogs is the fundamental reason why the media is so easily manipulated. Blogs earn from advertisements, and ads are purchased based on impressions, so blog owners are primarily concerned with page views. Adding to this is the general working condition of bloggers—they are often poor and lack sufficient time to verify sources and facts, and they do not have time to build a loyal readership because they must produce multiple posts throughout the day. Websites earn by selling ads that are evaluated by page views, putting constant pressure on bloggers to produce as many clickable posts as possible. Supporting this, the policy of the blog Business Insider states that an employee earning $60,000 annually must generate 1.8 million page views each month, or they risk losing their job.
A recent example from Austria, where a former assistant to the ex-Minister Sophie Karmanis was accused of falsifying research in favor of Kurz’s Austrian People’s Party and disseminating it through free newspapers, supports our narrative. Is Kurz’s withdrawal from politics a good example of lies being recognized and publicly exposed, or is he a victim of media manipulation?
Even if the fallout landed on the former Chancellor of Austria, what are the broader consequences of the aforementioned media manipulation?
By presenting lies as news, advertisers create a world between falsehood and reality, where one blends into the other and becomes indistinguishable. The results of media manipulation can have harmful effects on the lives of real people. These can include employees in companies or public figures whose words are twisted by bloggers, forcing them to resign.
Bloggers first publish news and only later verify and confirm the facts. This type of advertising relies on rumors. If they are lucky, the story will eventually turn out to be true. If not, they will report on the reactions to the news they created.
Thus, all consequences can be summarized under the term “ceremonial degradation,” which involves actions of ritualized destruction. The purpose is to allow the public to single out and display one of its members, to diminish their status, or to expel them from the group.
In conclusion, if we reflect on the modern trend of expressing attitudes toward moral issues with the phrase, “Not everything is black or white, some things are gray,” we become aware of moral regression. Ayn Rand pointed out back in 1964 that knowing “black and white” means understanding good and evil, and to define gray, we must first know what is black and white. Essentially, we must know what is good and what is evil. Once a person determines which chance is good and which is bad, there is no reason to choose their mixture, gray. We should not justify choosing something we know to be wrong.
I cannot end differently than with the words of Meša Selimović: “There are more good people in the world than evil ones. Much more! Only the evil ones are heard further and felt more intensely. The good ones are silent.”