Falling out of context and into the fire
Roland Barthes, the French literary critic, in his landmark 1967 essay, laid out the concept of ‘The Death of the Author’. Eschewing the paradigms of traditional literary theorists that took into account the intentions of the author of a text, Barthes said don’t do anything of the sort and view the said text independent of (what you think) the author meant. “To give a text an author” and assign a single, corresponding interpretation to it “is to impose a limit on that text”.
Though there might have been some merit to that style of postmodern critical theory, the internet has fed it steroids and stepped on the gas pedal. In this day and age, any statement or soundbite can be chopped up, repeated, and then made into quite literally anything, even the exact opposite of what the author actually meant.
It has happened most recently to the Indian National Congress’ pappoo-in-waiting Rahul Gandhi. While addressing a rally in Gujarat, he attempted to skewer some of prime minister Narendra Modi promises to the farmers. He said that the premier said that “Aisi machine lagaunga, iss side se aaloo ghusega, uss side se sona niklega.” (I will install such a machine that if you feed in potatoes from one side, you’ll get gold from the other side.)”
In no time, supporters of the BJP cropped out just this 20-seconds part of his speech and started sharing it around the internet. It was meme-gold (no pun.)
Yes, Rahul Gandhi’s aura was already a hospitable space for such out-of-context statements to be taken seriously because the fellow has a recurring foot-in-the-mouth disease as well. (A prior hit: While speaking on the ‘White Revolution’ in Gujarat, the Congress heir-apparent had said: “Gujarat ko agar kisine khada kiya hai, Gujarat ko Amul kisne diya hai, Gujarat ko kisne dudh diya hai toh iss taraf dekhiyein in mahilaon ne diya hai, Gujarat ki mahilaon ne diya hai!”)
This is not the first time that something had been taken out of context on the internet. What made this particular instance particularly jarring was that someone else was being parodied and that satire was taken seriously. Satire being taken seriously is a problem for a publication that takes out The Dependent, but Gandhi faced a problem that is much worse. The supporters of Narendra Modi did not furiously disclaim that their leader did not actually say that; they feverishly spread around the truncated soundbite, saying that it was Gandhi that had actually said that. Barring the initial few bhakts, the rest of the BJP supporters sharing the 20-seconds clip might have actually believed it.
Soundbites being cut up to mean the exact opposite of what was being said is not only limited to individuals who have been gaffe-prone in the past. The editor of this very paper, Mr Arif Nizami, has also fallen prey to it.
In the aftermath of Ayesha Gulalai’s allegations of sexual harassment against Imran Khan, activists of the PTI started sharing on the internet how Arif Nizami “revealed” on a television show that Ayesha Gulalai had taken Rs 50 crore in exchange for ‘creating drama’ to derail the Pakistan Tehrik-i- Insaaf.They further insinuated this payment had been made by the PML-N.
However, this was by no means true as could be seen in the footage of the TV show, where Mr Nizami is shown to be quoting PTI member Andaleeb Abbas, who said this to him when they met at the TV station’s studio. The video of Mr Nizami being shared and cited on social media was taken grossly out of context, with those capitalising on his words cutting out significant amounts of footage from both before and after the 18 seconds they were pushing.
In the video itself, it could clearly be seen that not only did Nizami attribute the statement to someone else, but he also expressed his reservations saying that such a claim could only be possible if the PML-N had “money printing machines.”
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The aforementioned examples only show instances that can be verified, if only after a cursory investigation. But we are rapidly entering into a brave new dystopian world where video evidence can just not be trusted.
As has been discussed in this column in the past, with software like Adobe’s Voco, a computer can, after being fed just a couple of minutes of an individual’s speech, “speak” whatever text one has written in their voice. It can even mimic intonations.
Couple that with the increasingly sophisticated rotoscoping and masking software available, and we’ve got a recipe for disaster. In fact, as opposed to Voco, this particular software isn’t just limited to specialist editing suites like those of Adobe, but has also worked its way down to consumer level apps as well!
Consider the effect that a politician’s speech would have if it were doctored into something absolutely blasphemous. The result would make the current holdout at Faizabad seem like a picnic. But why stop there, even? What if footage of Maulana Khadim Ali Rizvi himself were to be doctored into producing something to the same effect?
We are living in increasingly complicated times.