It is easy to imagine how fake news is a big problem here at home. The truth is that it is creating trouble in other countries as well.
As a timely reminder, Singapore minister for social and family development, Desmond Lee, rallied Southeast Asian countries to address the proliferation of fake news with its damaging, sometimes fatal, consequences.
In July, at least 20 were killed in India when unverified reports of kidnapping spread through WhatsApp and drove hordes of people to commit violent acts.
“I hope to see that in Asean, firstly as a regional grouping, that we all collectively recognize the severity of the challenge, and we have actually proactively had meetings and discussions,” Lee said.
Lee said he hopes each member-state of the Asean would come up with a framework with which to combat fake news. The measures, of course, have to be appropriate to each country’s social norms.
Fake news—a contradiction in terms because the news is ideally all the time accurate —is a plague that consigns citizens to stupidity and irrationality. There are those who knowingly start it, knowing that wrong information is just as deadly, or even deadlier, than no information at all.
Some help fuel it unwittingly, sharing posts and stories on social media without ensuring that the sources are credible and official.
Unfortunately, here, even official sources may sometimes willingly spread fake news. They blur the line between fact and uninformed opinion. They string discordant arguments together and pass this off as enlightened conversation.
With the prevalence of social media it has become easier to just pass off unverified information. This then contributes to the dumbing down of society. The effect may not be physical deaths as what happened in India, but a different kind of death: That of critical thinking and honest discourse that are crucial to building a nation.
With no apparent leadership from pertinent government agencies, it is up to homes and schools to remind younger Filipinos to respect the truth and to not immediately believe anything they see or hear or read.