Social media has become a Ministry of Misinformation

Oct 30, 2025 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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(Kaieteur News) – On social media everyone has a voice and free to express it, but few are truly listening or understanding one another. The once hopeful ideal of a connected world has devolved into a cacophony of competing voices, where truth, meaning, and civility are lost in translation. In this sense, social media stands as humanity’s new monument to pride and confusion. It has become a digital tower built to reach the heavens but collapsing under the weight of its own contradictions.

Social media is where gossip gets reincarnated every two minutes as “breaking news.” And yet, it is precisely this swamp of misinformation and disinformation that our government has chosen to elevate as its preferred means of communication. One would think that the architects of a modern state might aspire to higher ground, but apparently, the government has decided that if you can’t beat the trolls, you might as well join them… or at least subdue them with your own trolls.

President Irfaan Ali, in his inauguration address, solemnly warned against the perils of misinformation and disinformation on digital platforms. It was a noble sentiment. One could almost hear the angels of integrity humming softly in the background. But, alas, reality soon barged in like an uninvited guest at a wedding buffet. Because while the President was preaching truth, his party’s online army was busy setting up what can only be described as digital mud factories—flinging dirt, rumor, and innuendo at critics.

You see, on social media, the line between truth and fiction is not so much blurred as it is obliterated by the algorithmic blender. One moment, you’re scrolling past a cat video; the next, you’re reading that your neighbour’s cousin’s friend was seen smuggling gold in a plantain chip truck. It takes entire teams of exhausted fact-checkers to debunk these viral fantasies. But by the time they do, the lie has already traveled the Caribbean, picked up a tan, and gotten a government contract.

Yet, in what can only be described as a breathtaking act of cognitive dissonance, the government has decided that this is the very medium deserving of official endorsement. The Vice President, with his trademark confidence, has pronounced that social media has the greatest reach.

Greatest reach? Perhaps. But so does a mosquito. No one ever said it was a good thing. Reach, in this context, merely means that the nonsense gets to you faster. It doesn’t mean it stays, resonates, or, heaven forbid, educates.

This claim about “reach” is itself a masterpiece of modern mythmaking. Social media’s reach is broad but shallow like a puddle after a light drizzle. Government propaganda might reach thousands of screens, but most of it evaporates before it sinks in. The same algorithms that deliver your message also ensure it disappears in an hour, buried under a host of other posts. Social media is a digital echo chamber where everyone hears what they want to hear, believes what they want to believe, and where truth is a minor inconvenience easily scrolled past.

This is why some believe that the government’s sudden romance with social media advertising is less about communication and more about control. Traditional media, those pesky newspapers and television channels, come with editors, journalists, and occasionally, questions. Social media comes with none of that. It is the perfect platform for the soundbite, the slogan, and the saintly selfie. It requires no depth, no accountability, and no follow-up. For a government inclined to rule by narrative rather than by policy, it is paradise.

But like all paradises, this one comes with snakes. The same social media platforms that the government hopes to use as megaphones are also the ones that can amplify dissent, satire, and scandal with frightening speed. One bad meme, one viral video of an official saying something unwise, and suddenly the digital tide turns. The same algorithms that once served as friendly couriers of official statements now become merciless amplifiers of mockery.

The deeper tragedy, though, is what this all means for public discourse. When lies circulate faster than facts and when the measure of success is not truth but engagement, we end up with a population drowning in noise. The national conversation becomes a shouting match in a virtual barroom—everybody yelling, nobody listening, and everyone convinced that the other side is delusional.

And so, we return to the President’s noble concern about misinformation and disinformation. He was right, of course. These are grave threats. But combating them requires more than speeches it requires restraint, integrity, and the courage to unplug the government’s own propaganda machine. Until then, we remain trapped in a loop of digital absurdity where truth competes with rumor, sincerity with sarcasm, and governance with gossip.

Perhaps the only consolation is that one day, historians will look back on this era and marvel at our ingenuity. Never before has humanity built such a vast and efficient system for confusing itself.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)

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• ministry, misinformation, Peeping Tom, social media

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