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Is the internet a double-edged sword? A Kenyan answer.

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The fifth answer to the week’s bounty-board question, has the internet made it harder or easier for people to get access to the truth, and the one that turns on a single condition: whether you do the work.

The answer opens on the image it keeps: “I think the internet is a double-edged sword.” On one edge, the truth has never been easier to reach, for a particular kind of person. “If you do your due diligence through trusted sources, references, and say scholarly works or whatever works from proper research places, then you actually get your data or your true data.” So it has made the truth more accessible, “especially to people who are keen on due diligence.”

On the other edge, the same tools made anyone a thought leader, with proven or unproven expertise in whatever they like, health included, and “it’s given them a platform to amplify that falsehood even further.”

The split it ends on is between two audiences rather than two internets. For those keen to know the truth, it is much easier. For those who consume content in whatever form and hear from anyone without checking, “it becomes more of, does more harm than good.”

A hundred seconds, filmed for the We Them Media field network and commissioned through the poidh bounty board. The video’s own title places the voice in Kenya; the reporter does not give a name on tape.

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Transcript

Transcribed with Whisper from the original audio, so nothing is masked. Names corrected. Published in full, as spoken, so it can be read, searched and quoted. Search every transcript →

0:00Hi. So, we’re doing some few interviews for poidh. Picture it or it didn’t happen. It’s a platform where it allows individuals to put up different bounties to ask the community questions or the public. So, the question this week is, do you think that the internet has made it harder or easier for people to get access to the truth? I think the internet is a double-edged sword. So on one end, it’s made it a lot easier for you to access factual information. If you do your due diligence through trusted sources, references, and say scholarly works or whatever works from proper research places, then you actually get your data or your true data. So in that sense, it’s made the truth more accessible, especially to people who are keen on due diligence.

0:51But on the flip side, it’s also made anyone, a thought leader or anyone to have proven or non-proven expertise in particular subject matters. And so in that way, then it makes it, especially with people who are not proven experts or who come up with things whether in health or in whatever sector, then it’s given them a platform to amplify that falsehood even further. So I’d say it’s a double-edged sword. For those keen to know the truth, then you actually have it much easier for those who, you know, consume content in whatever form or hear from anyone without, you know, doing the due diligence to find out the truth. And it becomes more of, does more harm than good. Yeah.

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