container-ships sailing around the world. With his big smile, only the small table, and the mat,
as well as an enthusiasm so present that he hardly manages to sit down calmly, Thagyamin
seems to be the opposite of my friend Arkar. Thagyamin serves as a monk until he can get
more work on the sea, he has no family or friends to stay with or money for a hostel, much
unlike Arkar. He is in the upper middle class, has a big family, lots of friends, steady work
and lives a more luxurious lifestyle than most locals can afford.
As the interview carries on, I ask Arkar about internet security and online source criticism,
curious of perspectives regarding fake news. I wonder whether or not this is something he and
his students are aware of. It is especially interesting to talk with Arkar regarding this,
considering he use Facebook actively in his work. Many of his classes are broadcasted
through live-stream in groups or at Facebook pages. Arkar tells me how he needs to prepare
extra for these classes. “Live streaming cannot be deleted, you know. That is really
important”. He continues to explain how the students that are not available in the exact
moment can go back and watch the lesson and further how a “technical know-how” is
important. I am startled by the answer; “technical to know how?”, I ask. He looks at me and
smiles crocked. “Technical know-how, they have to know the technology exactly, to get the
best quality or HD, the high definition.” He carries on with talking about this and how he
learned to do live-stream through “googling” and watching YouTube-videos. I get the feeling
we have misunderstood each other and are moving in a different direction in this
conversation. Therefore, my questions become more directly about security and source
trustworthiness. The answer is unanticipated:
“They [locals that attended a public school] do not know how to distinguish (the) which
wrong information from the right. And that’s why, whenever they see information from
Facebook, they are, you know, [he hesitates a bit before he continuous], they use to, very
emotion… …they don’t take time to think [if] it is real or not, actually they don’t have that
kind of habit… …they are very emotional, yeah, that is really important”.
I found this very interesting, how Arkar tells me about using the “feelings” as a tool to
distinguish between the quality of sources. He connects this to the “technical know-how”,
explaining how, in his view, a higher level of knowledge towards technology can be
connected with a more developed skill to distinguish fake news from real ones.
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