How do you solve a problem like “fake news”?
Senators on Monday sought the help of veteran journalists and fact-checkers, government information offices, regulators, and the police in finding a way to resolve the growing menace of fake news, amid the complications of balancing the need to fight it without infringing on constitutional freedoms.
As several media groups and advocates reiterated decades-long call to decriminalize libel, for instance, Sen. Raffy Tulfo raised the risk from the flipside: what recourse for justice can someone harmed by peddlers of deliberate fake news have if the freelancer or blogger or independent party claims to have no means for compensating victims?
There was a consensus that the established media outfits and institutions are not the problem because their self-regulatory mechanisms have been functioning well. But concern was repeatedly raised by Tulfo and the Senate’s Public Information and Mass Media Committee Chairman Sen. Robinhood Padilla about the difficulty of calling to account the independent bloggers and social media influencers, and the block timers in broadcast, and making them liable if they peddle fake news.
During the hearing, Padilla as chairman of the committee and the inquiry, was told by National Press Club (NPC) President Paul Gutierrez that the NPC “rejected memberships of block timers” since a few years ago.
If not enough controls are put in place on the activities of block timers and freelancers-for-hire, the upcoming elections would be “most partisan,” even as Gutierrez recalled that “this last election, media was not used much by politicians in dirt muck-racking.” The greater battle was in social media, where candidates with the budget could tap entities running troll farms.
Padilla also stressed the importance of addressing the problem of fake news proliferation in the country and calls for the adoption of an inter-agency approach in the formulation of policies against it.
“The hearing should be focused on two aspects: the content and the medium. What is the content of fake news and how it flows quickly and repeatedly through social media and other means of communications,” Padilla said in Filipino. “This is despite the laws we have against fake news such as the Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012 and Article 154 of our Revised Penal Code on Unlawful Use of Means of Publication and Unlawful Utterances,” he added.
Another concern raised by Tulfo is that “fake media are just there to collect funds,” warning that “if you do not give, titirahin nila.”
Tulfo also aired concerns that “if you decriminalize, a fake journo extortionist who can not pay damages to a party he libeled will go scot-free.”
He recalled asking earlier if the government has plans and was told that a “fact-checking system is being fine-tuned.”
At the same time, Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian said he was earlier assured that “free Wi-Fi is on the way.”
Noting “the world has changed as technology advanced,” Gatchalian cited statistics that “70 percent consume their news online” and there has been “lower consumption through old channels.” The implication of this is that those fighting fake news must devote more resources and attention to the digital media, where more of such disinformation is spread quickly and vastly.
“Applying old methods wont work,” Gatchalian warned, noting, “Validating news is a tough task,” even as he predicted that in 10 to 20 years, “the way we consume news will be very different.” -30-