Misinformation- The cause of dystopia
By: Attia Munawer
Tags: Censorship

While living in a society, a person may often feel difficulty in determining how he can differentiate between the truths and the lies.

One solution to this problem is to transform the information into a better quality that is presented to society. Ignorance is the mainspring of societal dystopia because sometimes, information has been censored just to subdue the judgment of today’s citizens. Thus, forming a dystopian civilization.

Actually an inaccurate, false information is called misinformation that may be spread unintentionally due to either work pressure or carelessness by an individual but at the same time disinformation may be spread to deceive someone by creating propaganda that the government of a secular or conservative country will eventually make to manipulate its people in order to overwhelm them, and also to lean on elections and foreshadowing the democracies. These things are to be done solely for the sake of community just to repress the disturbing situation among the people. Low-credibility online social media sources are the major source of spreading all these conspiracy theories, misleading news reports, digital misleading information, and false article sources. Online social networking sites are playing a role in spreading massive digital misinformation, causing cognitive vulnerabilities in a society that leads to the formation of a dystopian civilization.

A monopolistic society where citizens are ill-treated and barely get basic human needs. A dystopian world free of independence, rights and no personal thinking, is governed by a group that disrespects its own people for their empowerment that is the government of Jammu and Kashmir. Since the partition of the subcontinent in 1947, Kashmir became divided into three occupied regions, an Indian occupied Jammu and Kashmir, Azad Kashmir in Pakistan and China occupied Kashmir. Kashmir is a political problem, representing a territorial dispute between India and Pakistan that results in the bloodshed of Kashmiris who are constantly engaged in their freedom movement and wanted to be recognized. Because the Indian government has failed to control over them, Kashmir now become a war zone and no longer remain a region but a border point between Pakistan, India, and China.

Human rights violations in Indian- occupied Kashmir- (Amnesty International)

India who has always been a big rival of Pakistan has a major conflict with its neighboring country due to the state of Kashmir. Each time India elects its Prime Minister democratically and make sure that peace does not occur. It’s a type of dystopian society who even forcibly hold Jammu and Kashmir, a Muslim majority state without the consent of Kashmiris and still claiming that Pakistan militant groups customarily cross into India and execute attacks there in order to lose Jammu and Kashmir. For this reason, Indian and Pakistani soldiers are still fighting on Siachen glacier in northern Kashmir and both countries have already been fought four times with each other. India does not want Kashmir to become a sovereign state. Government officials have been created misinformation in Kashmir and around the world. As some TV channels are also spreading distorting news and inflating communalism in the country. So, Indian armed forces march into Kashmir and their atrocities have been killed almost thousands of Kashmiris, just by saying that protesters are continuously being supported by Pakistan in order to create a distressed situation in Jammu and Kashmir.

Actually, every protester who is a Kashmiri, holding a stone in his hand without the fear of getting shot by pellets, bullets, torture, mass rape cases and increasing day by day massacre that Indian armed forces have continued.

War crimes in Indian occupied Kashmir ( Tribune)

However, they have just wanted the right of self-determination, support from the government, equal opportunities of education or employment and a right to allow them to decide for their own future. So, that they can live a normal life with dignity as compared to people of other states of India. Rather than this, India is on the verge of converting Jammu and Kashmir into a dystopian civilization. The only solution to this problem is to hold a referendum in Kashmir and allow Kashmiris to decide for their own future in order to free themselves from tears, immense pain, sufferings, and merciless lives that they have been living since last 70 years.

There is another story of a society in which we live like the country of Pakistan where some people have power and authority to completely change the thoughts of someone else by scare tactics, social power, persuasion techniques, and propaganda. Where ignorance of people somehow attributed to the formation of a dystopian civilization and it is not limited to one geographical location. However, it evaded the whole world. Similarly, some people have been accused of blasphemy by opponents just to settle their personal scores. There is a blasphemy law for the protection of Islamic authority. According to this law, a person who has committed the allegations of blasphemy have to face a death sentence if he has insulted a holy figure and life imprisonment in case of defiling Holy Quran. But in some cases, religious extremists or strong people blatantly abused this law in order to discriminate and crack down the minorities. This has been done for getting their personal vengeance. An untold story of an innocent man holds much importance in the eyes of its readers. Qutub, a man who had been accused of blasphemy by his landlord. The landlord had actually tried to hide his crime in the name of blasphemy because he had beaten Qutub along with his brother and his companions. Then, they pushed him down from the third floor of the building. Qutub got serious injuries and could not bear the pain and died. The reason landlord did all this was that Qutub had rejected to pay next month’s rent by saying that he had already paid the rent and would give the rent according to the date decided in a lease agreement that his landlord demanded. On this, the landlord got angry and committed a crime that he later was trying to hide along with other suspects by accusing Qutub, a blasphemer.

Such false news reports have been circulating around the society either by wrong witnesses or by false minded people that ultimately converting the utopian society into a dystopian society. Such sensitive matters ultimately provoked a mob that wanted execution immediately even before the trial began.

To solve all this in a better way there should be a need for fabricating a strong blasphemy law that not only protects religious minorities but also gives severe punishments to accuser of blasphemy and false witnesses. In some cases, false accuser has been alleged by some people who hold utterly personal motives. For doing proper jurisdiction, the false accuser of blasphemy must be immediately put into a trial and if he has proved himself as a false accuser then the false witnesses must also give the punishment under the blasphemy law. Other than this, a set of strong laws should be devised that discourages false accusation, blasphemy cases and nuisance creating in a society.

A dystopian society may be due to unawareness of people but it is not necessarily true as it also depends on the geographical region in which they are residing.

Reflecting on Utopia

An individual may be lived in a country where the mass media providing information is scrutinized by the government. Signs of un-enlightenment can be seen among people of North Korea. Even modern day North Korean people live their whole life under the centralized and dictatorial system of government where women are sparely considered as baby giving machine, faces gender discrimination, forced abortions. Women are treated as prostitutes in a stereotypic society while if one member of a family has even tried to raise voice against barbaric surveillance of government and the bureaucratic system then the whole family will be imprisoned after banishing from the capital city to improvised areas or killed after immense torture. There, high-class people are considered as true loyal representatives of a country because they never go against the government dictatorial supremacy, are used to live in the capital city and enjoy all luxurious needs of life as compared to normal poverty-stricken people who are starved to death. Nazi government of Germany had once used similar tactics to hold control over their people by controlling technology, mass media, and surveillance of each citizen’s calls. It incorporated its thoughts into their people through mass propaganda much like of North Korean government. The people of both countries are not at fault. They are just suffering from mindlessness as they are ignored and manipulated by the government which is the root of a societal dystopia.

The government forces use technology largely to ensure totalitarian control over society that includes the censorship of large valuable information which always keep out of the eyes of common people.

An Israeli airstrike hits the high-rise building housing Al Jazeera and The Associated Press’ offices in Gaza City to demoralize Palestinians and weaken their resolve ( Al Jazeera)

It is not necessarily possible to turn the whole modern society into a dystopian civilization, certain factors are largely responsible for this like eradication of democratic ruling party by invasion of military powers in densely populated area that includes numerous well equipped soldiers patrolling every street, they used mass propaganda to inculcate false believes in the minds of people in order to control citizens whose are much greater in number as compared to those employed in military. So, a rebellion can likely be occurred, if attempted because people get exhausted by enduring enough pain. Now they are wanted to end their sufferings and for this, they do whatever is possible. Even firm loyalties can be broken within no time during torture.

In order to deal with a societal dystopia created by misinformation like in tribal areas of Pakistan like FATA and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa where a single woman never gets a right to live on its own perspective. She has to be lived according to the desires of their parents or family members. She holds a disguise personality that is shaped by the dystopian society. She even doesn’t have the permission to enjoy family gathering openly and if she has been seen to enjoying a ceremonial celebration with his male family members, it is considered as a serious offense in tribal areas. The reason is those tribal areas people are conservative in their roots. They put such normal matter which is a serious crime in their eyes, into their Jirga. A Jirga is a small cabinet of elderly people who resolved disputes and matters according to the principles of Pashtunwali. These principles are against the laws of Judicature. Such people are merely educated and give severe punishments like stoning to death on the basis of misinformation to even innocent people. Rather than people should be enlightened about their rights by human rights organizations, they also have tried to live within the boundaries prescribed by their elders in order to avoid nuisance in their regions. The best solution of all these problems is that people who usually lived in a dystopian society where ignorance is a norm, should be enlightened by their rights, their power of freedom is stronger than any government power that can’t shut down their voices. People should raise their voices against such a hypocritical society in terms of inducement of democracy in their regions.