Authenticity and Falsehood in the Information Flood
On Li Xiaoyu's tablet screen, the post by "Truth Seeker" climbed the trending search list like a colorful venomous snake. The headline was shocking: "Deep Dive into 'Lighthouse of the Soul': A Mind Control Experiment Under the Cloak of Charity."
The post cleverly mixed true and false information: a maliciously spliced partial screenshot of a financial statement showing the injection of "foreign funds"; a video of an expert interview that was edited beyond recognition, with the original words "we need to guide children out of misconceptions in thinking" becoming "we need to guide children's thinking"; coupled with shocking labels such as "brain wave data", "behavioral intervention", and "ideology", an elaborate conspiracy theory jumped out of the page.
A lie need not be completely fictitious; it need only be the rearrangement of fragments of truth and the painting of suspicion.
"Shameless! Despicable!" Project Manager Zhang Wei slammed a stack of printed online reviews onto the table, her chest heaving violently. This usually soft-spoken Jiangnan girl's eyes were now red, her voice shrill with anger. "How could they… How could they slander the work we've pulled countless all-nighters on like this? It must have been so difficult for Lin Yue to recover, and they're trying to negate it all with just one sentence?"
Li Feng, the head of the public relations department, a middle-aged man with a significantly receding hairline, pressed his temples with his knuckles and said in a hoarse voice, "Secretary-General Li, our clarification statement... is like a drop of water dropped into a boiling oil pan. Look." He turned his laptop towards Li Xiaoyu.
On the screen, the Foundation's official statement received few reposts, while the most-liked comments under the "Truth Seeker" post were:
User @吃瓜不吐籽: "I've said it before, free is the most expensive! It's terrifying when you think about it!" (32,000 likes)
User "Iron Fist of Justice" commented: "Investigate! We must get to the bottom of this! Pull out all these cultural traitors!" (28,000 likes)
User "Sober Prometheus" posted: "[Screenshot] Everyone, look at question 53 of this questionnaire: 'Have you ever had ideas that differ from mainstream values?' Is this a screening exercise?" (19,000 likes)
In the torrent of emotions, the truth is just a pebble that can be washed away at any time.
At this moment, Li Xiaoyu's assistant, Xiaoyuan, pushed the door open. Her face was pale, and she clutched her phone tightly in her hand, as if holding a soldering iron. "Sister Yu... your work phone..." Her voice trembled as she handed it over. "Since half an hour ago..."
Li Xiaoyu took it and saw the screen was lit up. A strange number with the same address was calling her. She pressed the answer button and turned on the speakerphone.
An electronic synthesized voice, mixed with electrical noise and obviously processed, immediately filled the conference room: "Li Xiaoyu, you traitorous bitch! You used dirty money to brainwash your children. You will not live well! Your whole family..."
"Bang!" Zhang Wei, unable to bear it any longer, rushed over and hung up the phone, her body trembling slightly with anger and disgust. In the conference room, you could hear a pin drop, and the lingering malicious sound seemed to still echo in the air.
Xiaoyuan cried, "The message board on the official website is... unbearable." She opened her tablet and scrolled quickly. Amidst the obscenity saturating the screen, one message stood out: "Secretary Li, can you sleep at night? Will those children blinded by your 'lighthouse' ever come to you?"
Cyber violence transforms abstract malice into concrete sounds and words, repeatedly hitting people's psychological defenses.
Li Feng took a deep breath, trying to maintain his professionalism. "Secretary Li, I've just received notice that the University of Science and Technology and the Polytechnic University have officially sent a letter requesting the suspension of the 'Lighthouse of the Soul' activities at our schools, pending 'further investigation.'" He paused, then added, "Also... one of our core volunteers, Liu Xing from the Normal University, just called and said he wants to withdraw."
"Why?" Li Xiaoyu asked, her voice unexpectedly calm.
"He said... someone doxed his college and class based on the event photos, and flooded their class chat room with insults calling him a 'running dog of a running dog'... He... he couldn't stand it anymore."
As if all this weren't enough, a message popped up on Li Xiaoyu's personal WeChat account. It was from a mother who had previously sought help from the foundation because her child was addicted to the internet: "Teacher Li, what they say online... is it true? I've thought about it, and the psychological assessment questionnaire did ask a lot of questions about family income and parents' occupations... I'm so confused and scared now..."
Trust is like crystal, strong yet fragile. Once a crack appears, suspicion will penetrate everywhere.
Late at night, Li Xiaoyu was alone in the office. She turned off the lights and stood by the floor-to-ceiling window, overlooking the city's myriad lights. Under each light, someone might be scrolling through that rumor, casting disdainful glances at her and everything she represented. A profound sense of powerlessness, like an icy tide, slowly seeped through her every limb.
At this time, the squid's video request window lit up in the darkness like a small lighthouse.
"How does the eye of the storm taste?" The cuttlefish on the other side of the screen spoke in a calm tone as usual, even with a hint of inquiry.
Li Xiaoyu gave a wry smile and outlined the situation. "…We prepared all the evidence, but it was like reading data reports into a tsunami. Our voices were completely drowned out."
"Because you're using swords to block the waves," the cuttlefish pointed out. "No matter how sharp the sword is, how many water droplets can it split? What you need is wind, the wind of truth that can blow away the fog. But wind needs a stage, a stage where everyone can see how the fog is blown away."
Li Xiaoyu's eyes flashed, and she instantly understood. "I understand."
She immediately convened her core team and adjusted their strategy. They produced a series of short videos, free of charts and jargon, featuring real faces. Lin Yue spoke candidly about her struggles with the virtual and real world; Grandma Wang from the community smiled as she demonstrated how she had just learned to use her phone to video chat with her distant grandson; and a once-isolated university student described how a "lighthouse keeper" offered him a glass of warm water in his darkest moments.
These videos had some effect, but "Truth Seeker" Wang Ming quickly dropped a new bombshell: an extremely convincing fake audio clip imitating Li Xiaoyu's voice, which appeared to say: "...when necessary, some...um, leading hints can be used."
"This is fake! This is a criminal offense!" Zhang Wei almost collapsed, pointing at the screen, "How could he be so lawless!"
"We know, but the judge is public opinion, and public opinion now believes him." Li Feng's face turned pale.
Li Xiaoyu watched Wang Ming's hypocritical, "I'm the only one sober while everyone else is drunk" attitude on the screen and made a decision. "Contact all credible media platforms," she said clearly. "I want to invite Mr. Wang Ming for an open, unedited, live conversation."
The team was chorus of opposition.
"It's too risky! He makes his living by manipulating public opinion. We can't beat him!"
"He's so powerful right now, we'll be at a complete disadvantage!"
"It's precisely because he's so adept at attacking from the shadows," Li Xiaoyu glanced at the crowd, her eyes sharp as a knife, "that we must bring him into the spotlight. Only under the same spotlight can the true and false be revealed."
Wang Ming, as expected, gladly accepted the challenge. That night, the livestream's viewership instantly surpassed five million. In front of the camera, Wang Ming sported a sleek hairstyle, a perfectly pressed suit, and a knowing, compassionate expression. Li Xiaoyu, meanwhile, wore a simple business suit, her makeup unadorned, her tense expression revealed only by her tightly pursed lips.
"Secretary-General Li," Wang Ming spoke first, his tone aggressive, "Please answer directly, is there any capital transfer between the Foundation and the 'Global Mind Research Foundation', an institution that has been repeatedly accused of having special overseas backgrounds?" He threw out a complex equity structure diagram and circled an offshore company with a red marker.
Li Xiaoyu didn't look at the chart, instead staring directly at the camera, her tone steady. "Mr. Wang, this chart is very misleading. But why don't you tell the audience that the company you circled, 'Chenxi Capital,' is separated from our foundation by at least five layers of equity investment, of which we have no actual control, and that this path is based on a publicly available annual report that expired three years ago?" She signaled her team to simultaneously display the latest, clearest equity penetration chart alongside the live broadcast, with green lines highlighting the actual, fully transparent flow of funds. "If you insist on this accusation, I can now connect with our American partner, Professor Michael of Harvard University, via video chat, and have him explain to you and the entire audience what fully transparent international academic cooperation funding means."
Wang Ming's eyes twitched unnaturally, and he forced a smile. "Secretary-General Li is very good at avoiding the main point. Let's talk about the more core issue - your use of EEG equipment to collect students' biological data. Does this pose a threat to national bioinformatics security?"
"Thank you for mentioning 'safety'. This is a very important issue," Li Xiaoyu took over the conversation, having the staff produce the portable EEG device. "Mr. Wang, everyone, this is the EEG we use for scientific research. It records rhythmic signals like alpha and beta waves, which are used to assess concentration and relaxation levels. The data it collects is far simpler than the heart rate and sleep quality recorded by your health app on your phone. All data collection undergoes rigorous ethical review and informed consent from participants, and is immediately anonymized. I'd like to ask, Mr. Wang, when you use various mobile apps and authorize them to access your address book and location information, have you ever expressed such righteous concern for the security of your personal data? Or does your 'safety awareness' only apply to the Foundation?"
Temper the poison darts thrown by your opponent with the fire of facts and throw them back accurately - this is the most effective counterattack in the battlefield of public opinion.
The barrage began to fluctuate violently:
“[Thinking] It seems so… our data is collected by apps every day…”
“Why doesn’t the anchor answer the questions on the app?”
"I feel like the Foundation is more open and honest..."
Wang Ming's face changed slightly, and he quickly changed the subject, throwing out the forged audio: "Then how do you explain this recording in which you personally admitted to using 'guided suggestion'?! This is not a problem with the APP!" While the audio was playing, his right hand tapped the table unconsciously and quickly.
Li Xiaoyu sneered in his heart, this is what he was waiting for.
"The audio fabrication is quite sophisticated," she continued calmly, "but unfortunately, you overlooked a subtle detail. In the background of your fabricated sentence, a fire truck siren blared approaching from afar. Based on the city fire department's dispatch records and acoustic signature comparisons, it can be pinpointed to around 3:12 PM. At that time, I was in Conference Room 3 of the city government, attending an education coordination meeting chaired by Vice Mayor Zhang. There were over fifteen attendees, and the entire meeting was officially recorded. Would you like me to call a few of them, such as Director Wang of the Education Bureau, to verify this for you?"
She picked up her personal cell phone and pretended to look up the number. Beads of sweat instantly broke out on Wang Ming's forehead. He forced himself to remain calm: "You... you could have colluded in advance..."
"Really?" Li Xiaoyu pressed on, her gaze piercing. "Then why don't we be more direct? Have an authoritative third-party acoustic expert perform a real-time spectrum analysis of this audio to see if there's any mechanical artifacts from editing or synthesis. I'm sure the media friends here would be happy to provide such technical support."
What lies fear most is not questioning, but irrefutable, public technical verification.
Wang Ming was completely panicked, his eyes flickering, and he tried incoherently to steer the conversation towards other vague accusations, his logic completely failing. The barrage of comments completely reversed:
"Liar! Unfollow me!"
"It turns out we've all been used as pawns!"
"Apologize to the Foundation and Secretary-General Li!"
The live broadcast ended hastily when Wang Ming forcibly cut the connection. The tide of public opinion suddenly shifted.
A few days later, the perpetrator of the incident—the head of a competing organization—was investigated and punished according to law. Wang Ming's account was permanently banned by the platform. He sent Li Xiaoyu a lengthy letter of apology, confessing that he had been blinded by traffic and profit, becoming the kind of person he once hated.
The storm subsided, but Li Xiaoyu felt no relief. She took Zhang Wei to visit the mother who had raised questions in panic, patiently explaining things until she held her hand tightly, her eyes filled with guilt. She also found Liu Xing, the volunteer who had been forced to withdraw. The boy lowered his head in shame, but Li Xiaoyu patted him on the shoulder: "I don't blame you. Faced with such malice, fear is normal. What's important is how we can help more people have the courage not to succumb to lies and violence."
This incident, like a sharp thorn, pierced the hearts of Li Xiaoyu and the entire team. At a project review meeting, Zhang Wei, sorting through the volunteers' feedback, said thoughtfully, "Secretary-General Li, I've reviewed it and found that many of our own volunteers, and even some of our student recipients, felt a pang of disbelief when they first read that rumor. They said the 'evidence' seemed too 'real,' and that if they hadn't personally participated, they might have been skeptical."
Li Xiaoyu nodded. She recalled the comments during the livestream, initially overwhelmed by emotion but then gradually sobering up. An idea became increasingly clear in her mind.
Soon after, the "Mind Immunity" project was officially launched. Its goal wasn't to tell people "what to believe," but to teach them "how to believe." The project included developing an easy-to-understand toolkit for "three steps" in information screening: tracing the source, cross-validating, and analyzing motivations; conducting media literacy workshops in schools and communities, allowing participants to experience firsthand how easily information can be distorted and how difficult it is to verify; and collaborating with authoritative media outlets to establish a "Science Myth List" to regularly debunk rumors disguised as scientific evidence.
At her first university workshop, Li Xiaoyu avoided preaching and instead engaged students in a scenario simulation, having them play the roles of "rumor maker" and "truth checker." As the students experimented with fabricating a plausible lie using partial information and painstakingly verifying it, the audience erupted in gasps of wonder and thoughtful silence.
One university student who participated in the activity said after class: "It turns out that keeping a clear mind is the most valuable skill in this era of information explosion."
After hearing this, Li Xiaoyu whispered to Zhang Wei beside her, "Look, we can't create a sterile information greenhouse for everyone, but we can help them build a strong psychological immune system. That way, no matter what kind of information virus they encounter, they can rely on their clear mind—the one that can firmly anchor their lives even in the most turbid fog."
Outside the window, the torrent of information continues to surge, noisy and turbulent. But Li Xiaoyu believes that for every person who learns to think independently and anchor themselves in the tide, this ocean of information will gain a little more clarity and hope.
In the fog of truth and lies, a clear mind is the strongest anchor.
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