Fake News can trigger the third world war, Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka

San Francisco: Nobel Laureate Playwright and poet Wole Soyinka warned ‘Fake News can trigger the third world war.’ While speaking at a symposium organised by an international news agency, he cautioned that the effects of Fake News could be horrible. He commented that looking at the abundance of Fake News in Nigeria, the Fake News triggering the third world war could come from this country.

Wole Soyinka, a renowned Playwright, Poet and essay writer from Nigeria, was honoured with the Nobel Laureate for literature, in the year 1986. He is the first person from Africa, to receive Nobel Laureate in literature and is also connected with some reputed universities. While speaking at a symposium organised by an international news agency, he warned that Fake News could trigger the third world war. While strongly criticising the Fake News, being spread in a country like Nigeria, Soyinka warned that this disorientation could have horrible effects.

Soyinka described the troubles at the personal level, because of the Fake News saying ‘My statements about the Nigerian President received a lot of publicity. My death also has been reported many times. Many people called me to check if I was dead or alive.’ At the same time, saying that it has horrible effects, he went on to warn that the world may even be faced with the third world war, because of the Fake News.

There is a lot of concern being expressed around the world about the Fake News. Serious accusations are being levelled in this respect, and President Trump has accused the mainstream US media of spreading Fake News. The media and the US President seem to be at war over this subject. Trump says that the US media is trying to target him with the help of these Fake News. Trump has even given evidence for this.

Serious doubts are being raised on the credibility of the European media because of the Fake News. Some of the German organisations are complaining that the truth regarding immigrants, is not being allowed to reach the common man. Therefore, the issue of Fake News is in the limelight and the media factions are seen to be confronting each other.

In such a scenario, a warning by a Nobel Laureate that the third world war could trigger due to Fake News becomes significant. Although, Soyinka has not elaborated on the political, military and financial relevance of this statement and referred only to the Fake News in Nigeria, given the current international developments this warning seems justifiable.