Hi everyone! We argued in our last post, using our definition of “environmental pollution”, that magnetic pollution should be considered as a form of “environmental pollution” even if it is not widely regarded as such. In today’s post, we shall use our definition of “environmental pollution” and argue that information pollution is also a form of “environmental pollution”, as absurd as it may seem.
What is information pollution
Information pollution can be understood as the release excess information or low-quality information (Pandita, 2014). This low-quality information may be information that are at best useless, or at worst fake news. With globalisation, we can send information from one part of the world to another instantly, regardless of the quality of information. As everyone consumes large amounts of information every day, it makes all of us susceptible to it.
How it fits our definition
According to our definition of “environmental pollution”, it seems to consider information pollution as a subset of it as well! First of all, information pollution is definitely anthropogenic as information are produced by us humans. Secondly, information may seem like a tangible concept, but it can be considered both as a substance and as energy. Information can both be stored in a memory chip, a physical substance, or transmitted via electromagnetic waves from one computer to another. Hence, information also ticks the criteria of being a substance or an energy. Thirdly, we mentioned that information pollution is a result of information in excess quantities or deteriorated qualities. With that, the last (and most ambiguous) criteria is this: “Does information pollution impair the environment?” We definitely think so.
One needs to look no further than the climate deniers. Despite the scientific consensus behind climate change, fossil fuel companies are still holding their claiming otherwise (Cook, Supran, Oreskes, Maibach, & Lewandowsky, 2019). Be it through arguments such as “the climate is always changing”, “climate change is fake” or “cold weather proves climate change wrong”, consumers are misled by these companies. Together with other sources of misinformation and politics, this leads to many who still think that climate change is not real or not anthropogenic, hampering climate action (Charlton, 2019). Through disinformation, it is not hard to imagine that similar problems can occur for other forms of pollution. Thus, there is no doubt that information pollution can result in harm to environment or human health.
Absurdity of misinformation
Gathering all the bits and pieces together, we can see that information pollution fulfils the criteria for our definition of “environmental pollution”. What do you think? Should information pollution be seen as a type of “environmental pollution” or is our definition of “environmental pollution” flawed? Share your opinions down below and let’s have a discussion!
Lee Yang
References
Charlton, E. (2019). These are the places with the most climate change deniers. World Economic Forum. Retrieved from https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/09/places-with-most-climate-change-deniers/
Cook, J., Supran, G., Oreskes, N., Maibach, E., & Lewandowsky, S. (2019). Exxon has misled Americans on climate change for decades. Here’s how to fight back. The Guardian. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/oct/23/exxon-climate-change-fossil-fuels-disinformation
Pandita, R. (2014). Information pollution, a mounting threat: Internet a major causality.