A more tolerant society

By Joshua Corcuera

Philippine society in particular, and the whole world in general, has become less tolerant and more divisive. Several factors contribute to this frustrating reality. This has to change.

In the past, disagreements among people over contentious topics were normal. Nothing has changed with that, and it is understandable. After all, debates and discourses allow people to gain a broader understanding of what is happening around them as they open their minds to the perspectives of other people. Such discourses, however, require critical thinking, a common ground to agree with, and less emotions.

Today, disagreements remain over controversial subjects. Again, this is understandable. But, it is frustrating and disappointing to see, at least from a personal point of view, that people have resorted to personal attacks, ad hominem arguments, and overwhelming emotions. Case in point: look at social media. There are several topics that are so heated—from politics to sports and even entertainment news. In such topics, people—specifically online accounts—attack one another to the point that they insult with swearing, trolling, and disinformation just to protect their ego.

Speaking of disinformation, social media has undoubtedly played a part in the quick dissemination of misleading information. Albeit fake news and ludicrous claims already existed long ago, even before social media came, it cannot be denied that social media platforms failed to curb such things.

In a previous column, I shared a specific example—that, vaccines do not work and, according to the false information, claimed a life. Science would refute such a claim with hard evidence and solid facts, however. Yet for some reason, such a lie would spread and be believed by tens of thousands. To be fair with social media networks, fact checking efforts are now being done. However, this is not enough.

Schools and educational institutions can play a crucial role. Most young people engage and interact in social media constantly. So much so that technology has become more of a need and less of a want from the perspective of the youth. And it is also undeniable that some young social media users are vulnerable to disinformation—falsehoods that spread from science to history to basically what is happening around. From here, educational institutions must intensify teaching efforts in areas of fact-checking, differentiating real news from fake news, and scrutinizing evidence and citations.

It is not sufficient anymore that students know and understand how graphs work. Candidly speaking, it has become easier to manipulate and invent false statistics to favor a certain group or individual. Likewise, photos can be edited through the use of sophisticated software applications. This has been the case not only in Philippine social media, but also in foreign social media. As I have written numerous times in the past, hundreds of thousands of foreigners—specifically in the West—believe that the Earth is round or that face masks are useless.

Therefore, society at large—not only the Philippines—has to change itself for the better. There is this urgent and desperate need to be more tolerant. There is a need to be more critical of what one sees and hears. Otherwise, we are headed to an even deeper abyss that would have serious implications over society, specifically on its fight against COVID-19, climate change, historical distortion, and fake news.