OTHER than the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) that has brought the world to its knees, fake news related to this pandemic has been spreading so fast that experts have been prompted to raise an urgent red flag before it grows into a full-blown crisis dubbed an “infodemic.”
World Health Organization’s (WHO) Digital Business Solutions Manager Andrew Pattinson referred to it as the prevalence of false information regarding an ensuing health emergency of international scale.
“There is no doubt that fake news is rampant [nowadays], and we need to address this effectively,” former Dean of Ateneo School of Government Tony La Viña said in a virtual session on “Trusted Content, Fake News, and the Law in the Time of Covid-19” held recently by Thomson Reuters Manila and One Young World.
Technological advancement in this digital era has facilitated the quick dissemination of fake news. With the emergence of the Internet and mobile communications, it’s so easy for people to share information with their family, friends and colleagues anytime, anywhere, especially in times of uncertainty like this.
And where else can they effectively do this? Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and other social platforms. These have become their “go-to” channels to get, or pass on pieces of information at their fingertips.
Wrong or maliciously done ones, however, can prey on fears and even push the people to act in a drastic way leading to unwanted, and sometimes tragic, results. It’s important, therefore, for the general public or ordinary netizens, particularly those who do not have any journalism background, to make sure that the information they receive or share online must come from a trusted source.
“Otherwise, they will be victimized by fake news that will, eventually, make them have the wrong personal judgment or decision on anything related to Covid-19, or much worse contribute to the failure of national, or even global, strategy in combatting such pandemic,” Roselyn Tenorio, a former journalist-turned-blogger, told the BusinessMirror in an interview.
On the news
SIMILAR to the virulent flu that has continued to infect millions around the world, various false reports on this issue have rapidly proliferated online, causing panic and confusion among people.
Citing data from Google, broadcaster and parenting champion Niña Corpuz-Rodriguez revealed in a previous press event that fake news on social media, 25 percent of which tackles health, is so rampant nowadays. She said: “It’s really a cause of concern because it threatens lives and it costs lives.”
Very viral of which is the unfortunate event involving the Lion Air West Wind 24 aircraft, a medical evacuation plane bound for Japan, that exploded at Runway 24 of the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (Naia) on the evening of March 29, killing all of its eight passengers.
Karen Lema, deputy chief of Reuters Philippines Bureau, referred to a video that was uploaded online immediately after the news about the plane mishap broke that night. What the person behind this clip did, according to her, was merge the footage of a plane crash with the actual footage of the actual explosion.
“By the time this video was being shared, all the facts were not yet available. So one could potentially be misled to believing that this is what actually happened,” she said of the video that was shared more than 300 times on Facebook.
Another coronavirus-related fake news that recently made headlines was the Facebook posting by Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA) Deputy Administrator Mocha Uson of an erroneous picture of donated personal protective equipment (PPE).
In her post, she credited the government, using a photo she lifted from an article in a mainstream newspaper (The Philippine Star) about the Department of Health’s distribution of PPEs. These medical shielding gear, however, were actually donated by SM Foundation when later fact-checked.
As soon as the publication replaced the photo, Uson issued an erratum while revealing that she just sourced it from the latter. The OWWA official later called it an “honest mistake” when she appeared before the National Bureau of Investigation on May 18.
Another similar incident involved Cebu City-based writer and actor Maria Victoria “Bambi” Beltran, who was apprehended for her controversial Facebook statement on April 18 that said: “9,000+ new cases (all from Zapatera) of Covid-19 in Cebu City in one day. We are now the epicenter in the whole Solar System.”
She was responding to Cebu Mayor Edgardo Labella’s move on April 17 to put Barangay Luz under lockdown given the surge in confirmed cases in the entire community of Zapatera—population: 9,000 residents.
Per Beltran’s camp, such post was satirical, without any intention to cause panic among the netizens. But for the local chief executive, it’s an example of “fake news” violative of the Bayanihan To Heal as One Act.
Understand, abide by the law
THE advent of modern gadgets, notably smartphones, has opened the opportunity for everyone to become citizen patrollers. But whatever platform or channel they use in their “reporting,” they are advised to think as critically as journalists or media professionals if they like to join the process of gathering and distributing information to the public.
Responsibility is a bedrock of their newfound vocation. Since they are involved in providing information, they must ensure accuracy, balance and fairness in everything they bring online. They should always bear in mind that disseminating fake news is punishable in the country.
“In the Philippines, we have several laws that already applied even before the pandemic,” La Viña noted. “These laws are now being used by the government when they are charging people for spreading fake news in this time of pandemic.”
The Revised Penal Code (RPC) Article 154 punishes the dissemination of fake news. It also has provisions for criminal libel.
“The Cyber Crime Law, which is a new law, provides that these crimes under the Revised Penal Code can now be committed on the Internet,” he added.
Respect basic freedoms
EVEN if there’s an urgent need to address fake news in the time of Covid-19, everyone’s right to express his feelings or thoughts must not be taken for granted, the former dean of the Ateneo School of Government asserted.
“In a pandemic, more than ever, we actually need this freedom. Then we need, of course, information to be able to act in ways [that can] contribute to [the good of] each other or to the society.… We certainly need a functioning press to give us both alternative [and traditional way of disseminating the right] Covid-19 information and ideas,” La Viña said.
The basic freedoms of speech, expression and the press—all prominent in a democratic country like the Philippines—have their limitations, however. They are regulated when there’s a clear and present danger of a threat, and is real, serious and imminent that the state has the right to prevent for the good of all.
“That’s really the standard that we use. And let me be very clear that standard [about] the burden is on the state to prove the clear and present danger,” he explained. “The state should not even come in to get involved with that. It’s the judiciary that ultimately decides [on] that,” said La Vina.
La Viña cited, for instance, fake news that leads to deaths, or views that are hateful. He said: “If we get hate against people, against our government, against [an] ethnic [group], for a particular case, then the state would have the right to come in to regulate that. And how do they do that? Through prior state laws, or censorship laws … or to subsequent punishment laws for libel.”
Starve fake news purveyors, trolls
UNLIKE concerns as to when the coronavirus will end—since there’s still no vaccine available to eliminate it—combating fake news has a more certain battlefield.
“The best antidote to fake news is truthful news and great perspectives. You have to fight fake news with good news,” La Viña said.
He stressed that criminalizing the distribution of false information will not be totally effective: “Criminalization is not the best way to deal with [fake news]. [It’s the] wrong way to go, very bad for society, doesn’t solve the problem.”
La Viña noted that there is an entire “political economy,” or well-funded politics-driven machinery around fake news. He rather admonished users of social media and online sources of information to report such posts and block those who post them.
For him, those who spread fake news may not be stopped quickly, but anyone who shares information should be responsible for passing on only what is accurate and factual.
Taking a cue from his own experience with trolls actively attacking him on his social-media accounts, he encouraged netizens to follow the rule of Jesuit priest, Fr. James Martin: “If you attack me, or attack anyone else, you’re out. You can no longer be in my social-media world.”
La Viña added that, “In my view, that’s what all the newspapers should have done at the beginning.” In allowing “the audience to curse us, attack us, say bad things about other people…we allow them to do that.”
He concluded: “We have to keep on doing it. If we keep on purging [them], keep on going after people, and we ourselves as individuals and institutions, we should do that. And I think newspapers should do that. I think online media sites should do that. Don’t allow people to say bad things on your platform.”
Image credits: Vetre Antanviciute -Meskauskiene – Dreamstie.com
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