Over the last 70+ years, how ordinary people consume and share information has changed dramatically. Earlier, it started with print media, radio, and then Television. With the advent of the internet, content creation and dissemination are easier.
People talk about opinions as if they are facts and vice-versa. So, how can one differentiate between facts and opinions? A Fact is a statement that can be proven true or false, Whereas An Opinion is an expression of a person’s feelings that cannot be verified.
The opinion helps in considering different alternatives. It provides an untested hypothesis. Without opinions, we will simply find confirmatory facts, which would reinforce confirmation bias. We can test our beliefs with facts rather than arguing them. As Peter Drucker, the most outstanding management scholar of the past century, “The effective person…insists that people who voice an opinion also take responsibility for defining what factual findings can be expected and should be looked for.”
Successful companies encourage opinions and link them with facts-based testing to validate or disprove the hypothesis (or view). It helps the team ask the right questions rather than get the correct answers. It provides a clear direction from various lucrative feasible options.
If opinions are so good, then what’s the issue?
The issue starts when opinions are meant to deliberately mislead others by presenting opinions as facts. Opinions are presented with biased words. For example, “Listening to audiobooks doesn’t qualify as real reading.” Though it looks to be a fact, it is an opinion.
Many get misguided about real issues, reinforced by so-called recommendation engines based on personal preferences. Articles, images, and videos aligning with their preferences unknowingly reaffirm their individual bias.
We can observe the rise of radical right-wing and extreme left-wing groups in the last 5–10 years. These groups are using technology and changing public opinion to their wish without their knowledge. The Facebook-Cambridge Analytica data scandal is just the tip of the iceberg. It is a wave of disturbing world peace.
As a listener or reader, one should be able to spot the difference between facts (requires evidence and logic) and opinion (someone feels about something/someone). On listening to any thought, one should seek facts from reliable sources such as the government, non-partisan views from organizations like www.usafacts.org, or start-ups such as indiadatahub.com
On that front, an Open-data initiative from various governments such as data.gov, data.gov.uk, and data.gov.in is a giant step forward.
Many start-ups would be launched across the globe to provide facts for various topics and burning issues. Instead of being misled by a few groups, Common people and Corporations would be able to identify opinions, understand dissent, and then seek facts for decisions.
We cannot be manipulated by a few selfish groups, and it is our fundamental right to know what’s “true” and live in a peaceful society.