The document discusses digitizing democracy and fake news. It provides an overview of The Center of Applied Data Science (CADS), which aims to empower clients through data education. It then discusses definitions of fake news and Malaysia's Anti-Fake News Act of 2018. Several countries around the world have also implemented or discussed laws against fake news. To combat misinformation, the root causes of its proliferation must be addressed. Connecting with alternative sources of information online can spread misinformation, so mainstream media should not be suppressed.
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The Future Agenda: Digitising Democracy and the Fake News Saga
1. The Future Agenda:
Digitising Democracy
and the Fake News
SagaPresented by Sharala Axryd,
Founder of The Center of Applied Data Science
2. WHO ARE WE?
• We are CADS, aims to make the world more self-
sustainable through technology, insights and
intelligence.
• With that aim in mind, we educate our clients on
data management, integration and analysis. We
put customers first, and aim for our customers
complete independence from us and our services
at the earliest possible window. We empower
clients so they can be robust, agile and ready to
face tomorrow’s world.
3. • ASEAN’s first and only, comprehensive Data
Science training institution, we integrate learning,
networking and professional growth
• Through our rigorous programme, CADS aims to
participants who already have the right set of skills
become an effective data scientist, effectively
next generation of Data Professionals who can not
but exceed the needs of a digitally disrupted world
4. • “News, information, data and reports which
is or are wholly or partly false.”
• Maximum fine of RM500,000 or maximum
10-year jail term = as serious as kidnapping
and waging war with the Agong!
• Why do we need a new anti-fake news law
when there are already two laws that can be
used to combat fake news? The Defamation Act
1957 and the Printing Presses and Publications
Publications Act 1984 (PPPA).
• Criticized for impeding on free speech and its
loose definition of fake news
Anti-Fake News Act 2018
5. Fake News around the World
• Earlier this year Kenya passed a new cybercrime law, ostensibly criminalizing those administering abuse or
harassment through social media platforms, but also penalizing individuals that take part in the "publication of
false information".
• Ongoing discussions in Singapore have floated new fake news laws where the potential new regulations could be a
robust approach similar to how the country deals with illicit drugs. Drugtraffiking carries the death penalty in
Singapore.
• In April, a Cambodian government spokesperson suggested a fake news law is in the works to "prevent people
from saying wrong things";
• Belarus passed an anti-fake news law in June, allowing for the prosecution of people the government considers to
be spreading false information;
• Taiwan, a country known as one of the more open press environments in Asia, has raised the specter of jail or fines
for the spread of fake news on the internet.
• Russia created a fake news stamp to label news stories it believes contain false information;
• Syrian President Bashar Assad brushed off accusations of human rights abuses by simply saying, "We are living in a
fake news era";
• Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has dismissed critical news sources as "fake news outlets”;
• At the beginning of 2018, French president Emmanuel Macron put fake news clearly in his sights after a
contentious election in 2017 where he was the subject of what he claimed to be a large-scale disinformation
6. To combat “fake news” and
other types of misinformation,
we must look into the roots
that cause its proliferation
International and national rights groups, UN experts and Malaysian civil society have raised serious concerns that the law is inconsistent with international standards and may be used to violate the right to freedom of expression. Last month, the Senate (Dewan Negara) rejected a bill to repeal the repressive Anti-Fake News Act 2018.
The Defamation Act is basically law that criminalizes telling lies about somebody. Malaysia has a very, very detailed Defamation Act 1957 which you can check out here. Basically, defamation occurs when a person expresses words that may lower another person’s reputation in the eyes of the public. Libel covers things on record (emails, signed notes, etc) and slander covers things said or implied (in conversation or action).
1. Civil case – a private person sues another private person, then the punishment is compensation, which is decided by the judge depending on the damage caused.
2. Criminal case – the state (gomen) prosecutes a private person, then Section 499 to 502 of the Penal Code applies, and the punishment is straight out 2 years jail max and/or fine (amount not specified).
The PPPA on the other hand is a law specifically for the media and any printing related stuff. Section 8a of the PPPA specifically touches on false news and already criminalises it. The punishment according to this Act is a jail term not more than 3 years or a fine not exceeding RM20,000, or both.
'Fake news' is an extremely vague term, which is undefined in the law, leaving it open to arbitrary application by authorities. Legislation criminalising or otherwise censoring 'fake news' gives authorities the exclusive power to judge the 'truth' of communications and make determinations about what information the public may access. 'Fake news' laws, often justified by the supposed need to protect the public from misinformation, more often act as tools for governments to restrict the presentation of dissenting views or ideas in violation of the right to freedom of expression. International standards require that restrictions on freedom of expression be clearly set out in law, and necessary and proportionate to protect a legitimate aim. UN and regional Special Rapporteurs have made it clear that broad restrictions on 'fake news' do not pass that test, stating that, “General prohibitions on the dissemination of information based on vague and ambiguous ideas, including 'false news' or 'non-objective information', are incompatible with international standards for restrictions on freedom of expression”.
The Act violates international standards and constitutes a threat to freedom of expression, and makes clear that the law must be repealed in its entirety. Concerns around misinformation must be addressed through less restrictive policy measures, and not through far reaching criminal provisions.
In some cases push back from the press and public has resulted in governments stepping away from instituting fake news laws. After the Indian government earlier this year threatened to withdraw official accreditation from journalists accused of publishing fake news, the prime minister quickly backed off from the proposition following an extraordinary backlash from the media.
And while many of these new laws are quite overtly implemented as tools for authoritarian leaders to suppress dissent, other more ostensibly democratic western governments have also been grappling with ways to control the dissemination of what they deem to be fake news.
Members of the European Union have frequently raised concern over the spread of fake news, and its effects on free elections, but the EU has refused to suggest legislation as the answer. An EU commission report published in early 2018 accepted disinformation as a major problem, but recommended media literacy campaigns and enhanced transparency of online news as ways to tackle the problem.
A source working on the project suggested the commission's avoidance of explicit legislation was related to a concern that governmentally driven censorship could stifle freedom of expression. "We don't want to be viewed as the Ministry of Truth," said Mariya Gabriel, a member of the team working on the project.
Back in the United States and the looming fake news war seems to be forging a completely different path. Despite President Trump's ongoing battles with the mainstream media, it is difficult to see some kind of censorious law being passed. The country's first amendment does explicitly protect the freedom of the press, but Trump's ongoing characterization of the "fake news media" is seen by some as a thinly veiled strategy to discredit those news sources that simply cover the government in a negative light.
Trump himself summed up the fake news rhetoric in a nutshell with a frank comment to a journalist back in 2016, "You know why I do it? I do it to discredit you all and demean you all so that when you write negative stories about me no one will believe you."
Debate about the role of social media in the democratic process has taken on a negative, if not alarmist, spin of late. Representatives of traditional media have argued that filter bubbles and social groups with wholly inward looking views of the world are damaging social cohesion irreparably. They argue the ability of democratic states to strike compromises, and thereby create majorities, is being increasingly put into doubt by the misuse of social media. In a period when authoritarian social models are on the rise globally, such trends are particularly worrying.
Recent research on the digital revolution suggests the influence of digitization on elections and other democratic tools via social media and other means may be considerably less pernicious than feared.
Digitization has brought clear gains for democracy. E-voting has gained ground globally and many governments now try to improve transparency and ease contacts with their citizens. Estonia’s citizen-government interactions are now virtually all online; streets in central Yerevan, Armenia’s capital, abound with online terminals covering everything from paid parking to settling utility bills.
But convenience has not eclipsed the darker side of innovation. Serious doubts remain about the role of tech giants like Google and Facebook in potentially distorting information flows and attitudes.
The internet and social media are not the prime sources of political polarisation: evidence to date shows social media users tend to be young, better educated, more liberal and more interested in politics – and therefore unrepresentative of the electorate as a whole. By the same token, those least likely to use social media or the net are the most polarised.
Other research showed most people, across the political spectrum, still chose mainstream media as their prime source of information, while “fake news” had considerably less impact than widely assumed. A study by the School of Journalism at New York’s Columbia University, based on front page stories in the New York Times, highlighted the continuing role of traditional media in agenda setting. The evidence also suggests, people correct their opinions if shown to be wrong.
The algorithms used by search engines and social media sites could be made more transparent to attenuate fears of distortion and improve the detection of untrustworthy information. Boosting media literacy, notably among the young, would also be helpful.
85 billion hours is a lot of time. It's 3.5 billion days, or over nine million years -- 9,582,650 years, to be exact. And it's 11.425 hours for every human being on the planet. That's how long we've collectively spent in WhatsApp over the past three months. (Globally as of Aug 2018)
By contrast, we've only spent 30 billion hours in Facebook.
It was reported in January 2018 that WhatsApp now has 1.5 billion users and sees 60 billion messages sent per day. The average WhatsApp user sends 1,000 messages per month.
One of the traits of homo sapiens (human beings) is the tendency to gossip, and WhatsApp, more than any other app, enhances this in an easy-to-do and cheap way. With WhatsApp, we can embellish our gossip with texts, pictures, and videos. Gossiping can be quite serious especially in many under-employed communities. WhatsApp also facilitates gossiping and the spread of fake news by virtue of the speed at which messages can be spread with the app.
So, messages can spread all over the place in real time. Because of the efficiency with which communicating can be accomplished with WhatsApp, consumers around the world are reading their news less and less on Facebook and are increasingly turning to WhatsApp. Another attractive feature of WhatsApp, at least from the perspective of consumers, is the privacy that you get in the app. Consumers want some protection when they put something out there; protection that they really don’t get on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter.
Mobile internet connectivity has played an important role in expanding access in recent years (see Figure 2-2), especially in Asia and the Pacific and in Africa. The number of unique mobile cellular subscriptions increased from 3.89 billion in 2012 to 4.83 billion in 2016, two-thirds of the world’s population, with more than half of subscriptions located in Asia and the Pacific. The number of subscriptions is predicted to rise to 5.69 billion users in 2020. As of 2016, almost 60 per cent of the world’s population had access to a 4G broadband cellular network, up from almost 50 per cent in 2015 and 11 per cent in 2012.
Along with geographical variations, age plays a profound role in determining the balance between radio, television and the internet as the leading source of news. According to the 2017 Reuters Institute Digital News Report, in 36 countries and territories surveyed, 51 per cent of adults 55 years and older consider television as their main news source, compared to only 24 per cent of respondents between 18 and 24 (see Figure 2-3). The pattern is reversed when it comes to online media, chosen by 64 per cent of users between 18 and 24 as their primary source, but only by 28 per cent of users 55 and older. In the same 34 countries covered by the study, variations seem much smaller for radio, which is the primary medium for only four per cent of the youngest group of respondents, and for seven per cent among the oldest. This age differentiation may have significance for media going ahead, with potential correlations to aging societies and those with predominantly young populations. The shift towards online media as a leading source of information beyond those countries in the Reuters Institute Digital News Report is also occurring in other areas of the globe.
Fake news is certainly a real problem, no question about it. Misinformation being spread, masquerading as truth, intended to undermine certain governments, groups, or people, is an issue the world needs to rapidly tackle.
However, the phenomenon of fake news has slowly morphed into something more than simply false information.
It has become shorthand for news we don't agree with. It has been weaponized into a tool for governments around the world to quash information it doesn't approve of.
Fighting the Fakes
So is there anything we can do to fight the fakes, apart from not forwarding these stories?
Yes, there is. We can actively fight fake stories by debunking them in our social media, every single time we see a fake news story anywhere.
Think about it. What did we do when we received an email with a virus during the PC era? We’d inform the sender his computer has a virus, right?
We need to do the same with fake news. Every one of us must take up the responsibility sending off a message in our social groups, warning about any fake news we spot, and giving facts to prove the sites is a fake.
If we all do this, I believe ultimately, this flood of facts will drown the fakes.