When looking at the World Wide Web he had created, the father of the web occasionally feels like Dr Frankenstein.
“What have I wrought?” Tim Berners-Lee occasionally wonders.
This is according to Moneyweb’s Brad Stone, who recently interviewed the man who founded the World Wide Web consortium.
Click here for the Moneyweb interview
Since the World Wide Web was established 28 years ago, it has expanded to reach 40 per cent of the world population. Facebook has 2,07 billion monthly active users. YouTube has 1,5 billion users worldwide, who spend an average of 40 minutes or more on the platform daily. Instagram has over 700 million monthly active users. The figure for Twitter is 330 million.
Commercially orientated advertising systems on these platforms operate according to the rule of clicks – the more clicks, the more revenue.
So who wins the revenue race? He who exploits the status quo most optimally. Content creators who do so have become known as the creators of fake news.
The term “fake news” was initially defined as stories that damage an agency, entity or person. According to Merriam Webster, the term initially referred to content having to do with politics.
It has since been used to describe all types of content that is stripped of veracity and merely generated for the purposes of luring web users to the sites that host it. When users click on fake news, the creators and hosting platforms make money.
In South Africa, fake-news creators enjoy the same right to freedom of expression as members of the media.
“Media” was traditionally defined to include news generators and publishers with some kind of professional standing that subscribe to ethical standards.
That was before the World Wide Web and social-media platforms turned us all into publishers. On top of traditional journalists and media outlets, we now receive content from citizen journalists, bloggers and online gold diggers who do not have to confirm to any ethical standards.
To them, online content dissemination is a free for all.
To the media (traditionally speaking) online-content dissemination is an extension of the Constitutional duty conferred upon it. This duty is imparting information to readers who have the right to receive it. The media is bound to fulfil this function in a Constitutionally motivated and justifiable way – based on the values of human dignity, freedom and equality in an open, democratic society.
Whether he who adheres to no such values has the head start when it comes to click and revenue, depends on the mindsets of those who click.
Rather than just clicking away and consuming content mindlessly, it is the duty of the reader to evaluate what he is presented with.
The media must mould the mindset of its readers according to its consistently high standards. It is up to those who practice ethical journalism to set the bar. The media that will survive these challenging times is one that is credible and consistent in delivering quality news. It is a media that truly serves the public interest.
What is the public interest?
There is no single accepted definition of “the public interest.” Consensus exists on what it is not. It is not everything that the public finds interesting.
Within a South African context, it is possible to provide parameters within which the definition may fall. Back’s Law Dictionary defines “public interest” as “the general welfare of the public that warrants recognition and protection” and “something in which the public has a stake”.
In light of our Constitution, it can be said that the public has an interest in anything that materially affects the basic rights and responsibilities of South Africans – be that the responsibilities government has in favour of its people or the responsibilities residents have towards one another.
In order to survive, the media must be relentless and responsible in its search for truth. Ombudsman Johan Retief recently said the media’s adherence to the rules that bind it is “the media’s only way forward”.
This adherence, he said, must come from each journalist striving to live so unimpeachably that the law and the Press Code become part of their daily existence.
The regulations that apply to the media are not merely a filter distinguishing between good and bad, nor is it a tool according to which people are to be limited and convicted. It is part of the fibre of a credible, accountable media that reports responsibly and without fear.
It is according hereto that the media sets a bar so high that fake-news creators are unable to reach it.
There is a dignity in creating and consuming news in a Constitutional South Africa. He who reports in a dignified way enables his readers to be informed. This being informed is a cornerstone of each citizen’s ability to be a responsible and effective member of society. A responsible and effective member of society is a dignified one.
In reporting only what is true and in the public interest and in doing so responsibly, the media respects the dignity of its readers and reaffirms its own.
This setting of standards should motivate readers to click only on what is worth their time and attention. Accordingly, may those who lack credibility fail.
