Friday, March 23, 2018

How to deal with "deliberate fake news"

I will now give my views about the current attempt by the government to pass legislation to deal with "deliberate fake news". I understand that the government wish to pass a law to impose penalties on the people involved.

I will deal with these questions:

a) What is real news and what is fake news?
b) How to identify a malicious intent from a mistake, a joke or just an opinion?
c) Should the culpability be extended to the platform or website owner?

The large social media owners have testified to the select parliamentary committee that they do not have the ability to judge what is real news and what is fake news.

I agree with their view. It is impossible for them to deal with this matter when there are millions of posts that are put up each day on their platform.

A practical approach is for them to act when a party, who is affected by the fake news, raises an objection. The platform owner can remove the posting, if they agree that the objection is legitimate.

The aggrieved party can also ask the platform owner to post a correction to the fake news. This is the approach taken by Mr. Lee Kuan Yew one or two decade earlier. It is a fair and practical approach.

To be fair, the correction should not be longer than the original post. Exceptions can be made.

I will now deal with another matter. Suppose someone puts up a fake news. So what?

Why do I say so? Common sense will tell us about the following:

a) Not many people read the fake news.
b) Even if it is circulated virally, not many people will believe it.

There is therefore no need for the government to deal with this matter by passing any law, especially a law that may be ambigious and cause other problems, such as the curtailment of free speech or the right to express an opinon, or even to criticise the government for an unjust or dishonest act.

The best way to deal with fake news is to put up the real facts and let the people judge for themselves. We have to trust that most people have common sense and are decent people. They do not believe in any untruths or half truths that are pushed to them. Some of these half truths are put up by the government itself.

If we look at what is happening in America, we will realise the magnitude of the problem. President Trump makes statements that are considered outrageous by many people with common sense. But he believed in these statements. He is also the most powerful person in America and maybe the whole world. If there is a law against deliberate fake news, how will President Trump be judged and who will judge him?

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