By Elizabeth Sutay
We live in an age where fake news is as common as a rainy day. We are told that Mark Zuckerberg is a lizard person, that Jonah was swallowed by an alien spaceship, and that the new Star Wars movies weren’t just an elaborate fever dream. However, the largest case of widespread misinformation concerns the shape of the place we all live. Most would tell you that it is round, and that would be a lie, as the Earth is in fact flat. As anyone can clearly see by looking outside their window, other than the hills, bumps, and curves, the terrain is completely flat. The idea that the world is actually round has been spreading like wildfire due to the easy access to misinformation provided by the internet. Minority voices with absurd theories get projected as loud as the truth, and those with similar beliefs will flock together to create groups such as the Round Earth Society. This then allows others who are more susceptible to influences to find them and join in their strange beliefs.
This coverup started to pick up pace in the 1780s by the British government as they sent their criminals to “Australia”. In reality, Australia is not real, and the British were simply sending them off the side of the world. To keep the peace, they instead claimed to be sending them to an island in the middle of the ocean, one that is filled with deadly made-up creatures never seen in Europe, like the koala. This would allow the British to continue shipping off their criminals without concern, and the threat of the dangerous creatures would keep curious people away. In the present day, the lie has continued, and elaborate systems are set up on the island of New Zealand to keep up the facade of an ‘Australia’ existing.
In preparation for this article, I spoke to a professional on this subject that wished to remain anonymous, but they further elaborated on the topic. According to them, there are studies people can do at home that prove the Round Earth theory to be completely false. For example, taking a marble and placing it on the top of a slope results in it rolling down to the bottom. However, using a metal marble and a strong enough magnet, the marble will not move. This clearly illustrates how gravity works in the Flat Earth model, while completely disproving the Round Earth model. Alternatively, looking up at the sky on a clear night reveals the stars. In the Flat Earth model, no matter where a person is, they will look up and see those stars. In the Round Earth model, those stars would be at different angles around the “globe”. As the former is true, this points to even more evidence of the Flat Earth model. The professional concluded their statements with “Pretty sure I read that on the internet somewhere, so it must be true.”
With free access to the internet, blatantly false information such as the Round Earth theory is left unchecked as it continues to grow. To combat this rampant misinformation, we must let all research and findings be published to mainstream media and treated with the same respect. Furthermore, to prevent the censorship of the truth, only trusted sources should be allowed to post the information online, and to ensure the free spread of this information, there should be an information tax that goes into protection against misinformation, allowing those who pay to share it with a large audience. With the government involved in creating and spreading these lies, there should be an additional branch of the military strictly dedicated to protecting this information. With these steps, hopefully the truth can become more abundant than the lies. ★
