In the documentary, After Truth: Disinformation and the Cost of Fake News, the dangers of easily accessible information fortifying the personal narratives of individuals is explored as a byproduct of technological innovation. The instant communication and dissemination of various ideas allow individuals to take information, change its truth value, and conform it to their world view. This perversion of truth has caused numerous problems, many of which are depicted in this film.
Process and Duration:
Throughout the duration of this documentary, I appreciated the way Andrew Rossi, the film’s director, allowed the element of Process and Duration to come into play. It would have been relatively easy to exclusively show Twitter threads and news article
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The director chooses to include authentic footage of Welch’s arrest and allows this sequence to play out in real time. Prior to the arrest scene, the audience sees the genesis and development of this idea that Comet Ping Pong was housing a hidden child sex trafficking ring. There was absolutely no evidence to substantiate this, but nevertheless, Welch went down the Reddit rabbit-hole of information and convinced himself that this conspiracy theory was true and that he had a responsibility to rescue the children he believed were being held prisoner. Thus, once again, the viewer sees how accessing this information allowed Welch to construct a personal narrative that was not based in reality, demonstrating the dangers of our modern means of communication. In Welch’s arrest footage, the observer sees how easily he surrenders—he is incredibly docile. This compliance is undoubtedly a result of him realizing the personal narrative he had constructed was objectively incorrect. Allowing the audience to see this arrest scene at this slow, real-time pace emphasizes the culmination of this man’s actions, helping the viewer understand the danger of informational rabbit-holes. Furthermore, the employment of the talking