I asked you to write a light novel, but you wrote about living?

The next morning, when Yu Wen entered his study, the topic on the trending list had been up all night.

Yu Huashi apologizes

Yu Wen did not click on it immediately.

He first turned off the public projection on the terminal, and then switched all related news to be visible only to himself.

Yu Yin has been in a good mood lately.

Every day, they go to school and come home, and on weekends they enthusiastically plan their next outing.

Yu Wen didn't want to let a few trending topics interfere with his life, which had finally returned to normal.

Let those people outside say whatever they want; they can keep it all inside his study.

Only after doing all this did he open the open letter.

Twelve media outlets jointly signed a statement demanding that he retract his "inappropriate remarks" during the interview and apologize to all the journalists who were hurt.

The wording of the open letter was very carefully considered.

It no longer insisted that Yu Wen insulted all journalists, but only said that his remarks "objectively damaged the overall image of the news industry."

There was no explanation as to where those out-of-context headlines originally came from; they only acknowledged that "information bias may have occurred during the dissemination process."

Information bias.

Upon seeing these four words, Yu Wen couldn't help but chuckle.

Cutting out the cause and effect is an information bias.

Expanding the scope of the subject without authorization is an imprecise expression.

Writing speculation as fact is a misunderstanding that arises during the dissemination process.

In the end, the only one who needed to sincerely apologize was the person whose context was cut out.

Below the open letter, book fans are still scrolling up to see the full interview.

But even with the original video there, its reach still couldn't compare to that extracted profanity.

Many people no longer deny that the video was edited.

A comment that had been attacked all night was brought back to the top.

[I said yesterday that this video was edited, and you guys are saying I'm being unreasonable.]

[Once the full interview is out, you guys are saying the focus isn't on the editing...]

[Permission to return to base.]

The Earth is round; it flies around and comes right back.

[You've landed safely. Will you dare to tell the truth next time?]

But those people didn't stop because of that.

They just used a different way of saying it.

Does having context justify hurling insults?

[Don't bring up taking things out of context. Did he say that or not?]

Even if fans repost the original video a thousand times, it won't change the fact that Yu Huashi has low moral character.

Occasionally someone will offer an explanation, but it will immediately be drowned out by new replies.

[It's here! The frame-by-frame cleanup is late, but it's finally here.]

Don't give me reading comprehension questions; I only want to know if he swore or not.

Who can watch a video that's over two minutes long? Isn't the key point just in the last sentence?

[Putting aside their rumors, is Yu Huashi completely without fault?]

Yu Wen looked at it for a while, then turned off the comments.

At this point, the exact words are no longer important.

Or rather, from the moment that video went viral, not many people really cared about the original words.

Someone needs a reason to be angry.

Some people need a topic that they can repeatedly consume.

Some people have already taken their positions, and even with the truth laid bare before them, they cannot easily back down.

It's much more troublesome to admit you're wrong than to keep arguing.

Yu Wen originally intended to write an explanation.

Who is the interviewee, why did they say that, and what is the context? These can all be explained in just a few words.

But he stopped as soon as he opened the editing page.

The longer the explanation, the more sentences can be extracted.

Delete a sentence today, extract half a sentence tomorrow.

He writes a thousand words, and the other party only needs to leave the ten words that are most suitable as a title.

Then everyone will argue about those ten words for another day.

This trick is actually nothing new.

The times are always moving forward.

Paper becomes a screen, post horses become a star network, and the storyteller's mouth becomes a model capable of generating hundreds of titles in a second.

The speed of dissemination is getting faster and the methods are getting more and more sophisticated, but what lies behind these methods has never really changed.

People like to hear things that align with their own stance, like to believe stories that incite anger, and like to pick out the most glaring part from complex facts and then treat it as the whole story.

Technology can be updated, and times can progress, but human nature will not suddenly become more honest just because there are a few more chips or algorithms.

Liu Zhenyun once said: "From the Spring and Autumn Period to the present, human nature has not undergone any substantial change."

When Yu Wen first read this sentence, he thought it was a bit exaggerated.

Looking at it now, it seems incredibly fitting.

The ancients often quoted out of context and relied on oral tradition to pass down their knowledge.

People today often take things out of context; all they need to do is talk to AI.

The forms may differ, but the things we want to do are the same.

Yu Wen couldn't help but think of Cao Cao from the Three Kingdoms period. The Eastern Jin historian Sun Sheng recorded in his "Miscellaneous Records" that Cao Cao once said:

"I would rather betray others than be betrayed by them."

Later, through repeated retellings and rewritings, this sentence gradually became the more famous one:

"I would rather betray the world than let the world betray me."

It's just that there's one more "world".

But the meaning has completely changed.

What was originally just a harsh statement made by one person in a special situation, after being amplified, suddenly became a declaration of being an enemy of the whole world.

Those who heard this were naturally furious.

What?

All people under heaven?

I'd rather you betray the world than let the world betray you.

Traitorous minister!

What a treacherous minister!

As for what the original sentence actually was, and the circumstances under which it was said, not many people care anymore.

Looking at the unfinished explanation, Yu Wen suddenly found it somewhat laughable.

Since you like taking things out of context so much.

Since no matter what he says, in the end only the part that is most suitable for dissemination will remain.

Then there's no need to explain.

Didn't you ask for a correction?

Okay, he'll correct it once.

This time, however, they will not be given the chance to delete the context.

Yu Wen deleted all the several hundred words he had just written.

The editing page has become blank again.

He leaned back in his chair, and the name at the end of "Running for Governor" suddenly flashed through his mind.

Mark Twain.

Faced with protests and demands for apologies, that person never lacked a way to appear to back down but actually push the irony further.

Yu Wen's lips slowly curled up into a smile.

He deleted the explanation in the text box and slowly typed:

[Statement: In an interview yesterday, I referred to media accounts that first draw conclusions, then collect materials, and finally feed the garbage to models to mass-produce false reports as "fed shit dogs."]

After careful consideration, I believe this statement was indeed not rigorous enough and does not entirely reflect the facts, potentially causing unintended harm to some journalists who diligently verify information and respect the truth.

I apologize to the media outlets for these inaccurate statements.

[This is a formal statement, and the original wording has been corrected as follows:]

[In the media industry, some media outlets are not the kind of propaganda dogs that feed models excrement.]