Netizens were rocked anew by posts on social media on Sunday that President Rodrigo Duterte was rushed to Cardinal Santos Hospital due to cardiac arrest. The post, obviously unverified and without a clear source, was later debunked by photographs posted by the President’s trusted aide and Senator-in-waiting Christopher “Bong” Go.
This is not the first time that news of the President’s health was spread around.
Is it time to make spreading and sharing fake news a crime?
Last May 8, 2019, Singapore passed the Protection from Online Falsehood and Manipulation Act (POFMA) 2019 or their equivalent of what looks like a “Fake News Law.” The news was met with mixed reactions from within Singapore and the international audience. Brickbats and bouquets came its way. But Singapore didn’t care. It needed to act against the growing problem of misinformation.
The Singaporean lawmakers enacted POFMA for four main reasons. Firstly, to prevent the communication of false statements of fact and enable measures to counteract the effects of such communication. Secondly, to supress the financing, promotion and support of online locations in Singapore that repeatedly communicate false statements of facts. Thirdly, to enable measures to be taken to detect, control and safeguard against coordinated inauthentic behaviour and other misuse of online accounts and bots. And lastly, to enable measures to be taken to enhance the disclosure of information concerning paid content directed towards a political end.
It is interesting how Singapore’s POFMA works. Article 7, Part 2 of the act states that a piece of news is deemed to be fake and worthy of action if and only if it meets two criteria. Firstly, it should be a false statement of fact. And secondly, communication of this false news is likely to affect the security of Singapore or be prejudicial to public health, safety, tranquillity or finances or be prejudicial to Singapore’s relations with other countries or influence the outcome of elections or incite feelings of hatred, enmity/ ill will or diminish public confidence in the state or its institutions. Article 10 of Part 3 of the act makes any Minister or the equivalent of a cabinet secretary in Philippine setting in the Singapore government competent to classify news as fake and take appropriate action to deal with such news.
Article 11 of Part 3 concerns communicating a “Correction Direction”. A Correction Direction can be issued to a person to communicate a Correction Notice (Statement nullifying a false information and inserting a corresponding true statement and/or its link next to the false statement) within a specified time limit to all persons who have received the false information and/or publish the correction notice in a newspaper or other print publications of Singapore. Article 12 of Part 3 empowers the Competent Authority to issue a “Stop Communication” direction, and Article 16 of Part 3 empowers the Minister to direct the Information Communication Media Development Authority (IMDA) which could be the equivalent of the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) to order the internet access service provider to disable access to an online location for all end users by issuing an “Access Blocking Order”.
Indeed, it is important not only to classify a piece of information or news being spread on cyberspace as genuine or fake but also for the authorities to do something about it and put a stop to this culture of misinformation, prank and messages of hate.
Perhaps this could be among the priority agenda of the next Congress.
