THE STAR COLUMNIST
One Man's Meat
On social media, many fall for fake reports because they reconfirm their existing beliefs.
PSST ... I’ve got something confidential to share. Keep this between us.
I received an email from Dr Bakare Tunde. He’s the Astronautics Project Manager of the National Space Research and Development Agency (NASRDA). The address of NASRDA is Plot 555, Misau Street, PMB 437 Garki, Abuja, Nigeria.
In his email, Dr Tunde requested strictly-confidential assistance. He is the cousin of Nigerian astronaut Air Force Major Abacha Tunde.
Abacha, according to Dr Tunde, was the first African in space when he made a secret flight to the Salyut 6 space station in 1979.
(I checked and this flight is indeed a secret. So secret that there is information of such a flight on Google.)
Ten years later, Abacha was on another Soviet space flight, Soyuz T-16Z, to the secret Soviet military space station Salyut 8T, said his cousin.
“He was stranded there in 1990 when the Soviet Union was dissolved. His other Soviet crew members returned to earth on the Soyuz T-16Z, but his place was taken up by return cargo,” Dr Tunde wrote.
“There have been occasional Progrez supply flights to keep him going since that time. He is in good humour, but wants to come home.”
(It is good to know that after about 15 years being stuck in space, Abacha is in good humour.)
Here’s the important part.
“In the 14 years since he has been on the station, he has accumulated flight pay and interest amounting to almost US$15,000,000,” wrote the Astronautics project manager.
“This is held in a trust at the Lagos National Savings and Trust Association. If we can obtain access to this money, we can place a down payment with the Russian Space Authorities for a Soyuz return flight to bring him back to Earth. I am told this will cost US$3,000,000. In order to access his trust fund, we need your assistance.”
To cut the story short, Dr Tunde needs US$3mil to retrieve the US$15mil accumulated salary of his stuck-in-space cousin. However, he needs a bank account to retrieve the US$15mil because he and his NASRDA colleagues “as civil servants are prohibited by the Code of Conduct Bureau (Civil Service Laws) from opening and/ or operating foreign accounts in our names”.
Needless to say, wrote Dr Tunde, the trust reposed on me at this juncture is enormous.
In return for me allowing them to use my account, he and his colleagues have agreed to offer me 20% of the transferred sum, while 10% shall be set aside for incidental expenses (internal and external) between the parties in the course of the transaction.
“You will be mandated to remit the balance 70% to other accounts in due course,” he wrote. “Kindly expedite action as we are behind schedule to enable us to include down payment in this financial quarter.”
I’m planning to do a noble deed and bring the stuck Nigerian astronaut back to earth. I’ll allow Dr Tunde to use my bank account in order to retrieve the US$15mil. The US$3mil that I’ll make from this deal will be incidental.
Psst ... the Bangladeshis are coming to Malaysia (despite Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi announcing that the Government has decided to suspend the recruitment of all foreign workers to Malaysia, including those from Bangladesh.)
I know this as a fact as trusted friends (who have degrees) have shared on WhatsApp, Facebook and Twitter photographs of foreigners (who look like they may or may not be Bangladeshis) arriving in KLIA and images of the daily arrival of flights from Dhaka to KLIA.
And I don’t believe the Immigration Department’s explanation on Facebook that the photographs uploaded to social media were actually the screening process done by the KLIA enforcement unit to check passengers who were not genuine visitors.
I believe my friends who say that these photographs are proof that the Bangladeshis are coming and they eventually will become 1.5 million voters for Barisan Nasional to win GE14.
If Malaysians can fall for the “Bangladeshis are coming” fake social media report, I won’t be surprise if they fall for the Nigerian astronaut scam. Perhaps my comparison of the Nigerian scam with the Bangladeshis fake report is over the top, but you get my drift.
Here’s how misinformation is spread online.
The World Economic Forum website recently ran an interview with Walter Quattrociocchi, the head of the Laboratory of Computational Social Science at IMT Lucca in Italy, who has been studying the phenomenon of misinformation online.
“People are looking for information which will confirm their existing beliefs. If today an article comes out from the WHO supporting your claims, you like it and share it. If tomorrow a new one comes out contradicting your claims, you criticise it, question it,” Quattrociocchi said.
“But couldn’t we combat that by spreading better information?” World Economic Forum asked.
“No. In fact, there is evidence that this only makes things worse,” he said.
“We found that people interested in a conspiracy theory are likely to become more involved in the conversation when exposed to ‘debunking’.
“In other words, the more the exposure to contrasting information a person is given, the more it reinforces their consumption pattern. Debunking within an echo chamber can backfire, and reinforce people’s bias.”
Misinformation online is very difficult to correct, according to Quattrociocchi.
“Confirmation bias is extremely powerful. Once people have found ‘evidence’ of their views, external and contradicting versions are simply ignored,” he said.
Yes, the Bangladeshis are coming.
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