Discussions on disinformation, fake news

Tech giants could face billions of dollars in fines for failing to tackle disinformation under proposed Australian laws, which a watchdog says would bring "mandatory" standards to the little-regulated sector.

Under the proposed legislation, the owners of platforms like Facebook, Google, Twitter, TikTok and podcasting services would face penalties worth up to five percent of annual global turnover -- some of the highest proposed anywhere in the world.

The Australian Communications and Media Authority, a government watchdog, would be granted a range of powers to force companies to prevent misinformation or disinformation from spreading and stop it from being monetised.

"The legislation, if passed, would provide the ACMA with a range of new powers to compel information from digital platforms, register and enforce mandatory industry codes as well as make industry standards," a spokesperson told AFP.

The watchdog would not have the power to take down or sanction individual posts. — AFP

Rioters who ransacked Congress and other buildings in Brasilia were partly mobilized by disinformation alleging a "fraudulent" electronic ballot system cost Jair Bolsonaro his victory in the presidential election.

"We want the source code!" shouted supporters of the far-right ex-president, who demanded that the army step in to prevent the return to power of Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who was inaugurated on January 1.  

The source code is the set of digital instructions in the computer program that allows electronic ballot boxes to tabulate votes.

Brazil's Superior Electoral Tribunal (TSE) allowed access to the source code to political parties and control bodies as early as October 2021, a year before the election.

But disinformation circulating widely on the internet suggests that it was kept secret to conceal alleged fraud. — AFP

Midterm elections in the United States saw free but highly polarized campaigns and voter disinformation was widespread, international observers say.

The comments by observers with the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), which monitors elections in Western nations and the former Soviet Union, came a day after Americans headed to the polls -- with outcomes set to shape the political fortunes of President Joe Biden.

Biden's Democrats are facing a struggle to hold on to control of Congress, after a race that he has cast as a defining moment for US democracy.

For now, Republicans are edging towards a slim majority in the US House of Representatives, but their hopes of a "red wave" appear dashed as the Democrats outperformed.

"Campaigning was free but highly polarized," and involved harsh rhetoric, says Margareta Cederfelt, leader of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly's short-term observer mission.

"Polarization and widespread disinformation affected voters' ability to inform themselves," she tells reporters on Wednesday, adding that the intimidation of election workers was concerning as well. — AFP

With midterm election campaigns in the closing stretch, Americans could face an onslaught of misinformation about the results. Recent trends suggest alleged voter fraud will be one of the biggest themes.

Claims of foul play -- despite being repeatedly debunked after the 2020 presidential election -- have permeated voters' minds. Nearly 40 percent of Republicans and a quarter of Democrats might blame fraud if their party does not win control of Congress on November 8, according to a recent Axios-Ipsos poll.

Such an outlook, with social media weaponized by political operatives and potentially by foreign actors, poses an ongoing risk to democracy in the United States.

"There is going to be a continued effort to undermine confidence in the system," warned Larry Norden, senior director of the Elections and Government Program at the Brennan Center for Justice, a liberal-leaning think tank, citing "lies around the election" as his biggest fear. -- AFP

Facebook adds a method for people running groups to automatically sift out claims that have been debunked since being posted.

The ability for group administrators to send misinformation to a "quarantine queue" comes ahead of midterm elections in the United States and as Facebook-parent Meta continues to fend off critics who say it doesn't do enough to fight misinformation on its platforms.

The tool allows those running groups to automatically relegate into quarantine new posts tagged as containing false information, as well as previously posted claims that were subsequently proven untrue, according to Facebook.

"To help ensure content is more reliable for the broader community, group admins can automatically move posts containing information rated as false by third-party fact-checkers to pending posts so that the admins can review the posts before deleting them," says head of Facebook Tom Alison. — AFP

Turkey's parliament approves a tough pre-election law that could see reporters and social media users jailed for up to three years for spreading "fake news".

The new rules cement the government's already-firm grip on the media eight months before a general election that President Recep Tayyip Erdogan enters trailing in the polls.

The Council of Europe says the measure's vague definition of "disinformation" and accompanying threat of jail could have a "chilling effect and increased self-censorship, not least in view of the upcoming elections in June 2023".

The legislation -- comprised of 40 amendments that each required a separate vote -- was proposed by Erdogan's Islamic-rooted AKP party and furiously opposed by Turkey's main opposition groups. — AFP

With nearly 90% of respondents in a Pulse Asia survey agreeing that they see "fake news" as a serious problem, Sen. Risa Hontiveros says "empowering the public to seek out credible avenues for verified information should be a top priority."

"We should legislate skills-based training and media literacy programs to help the public detect fake news and re-build the habit of truth seeking. This should be backed by a strong partnership between national and local government, schools, NGOs and other training institutes," she says in a press statement.

"We should also consider adopting the European Union's practice of requiring social media companies to submit reports on how disinformation spreads on their platforms and its impact on our country. It's about time that the government pressures social media networks to be accountable."

The September 2022 Ulat ng Bayan poll of Pulse Asia shows that about nine out of every 10 adult Filipinos or 86% think false news or fake news is a problem in the country.

“An overwhelming majority of the country’s adult population (90%) have read, heard and/or watched fake political news; internet or social media (68%) and television (67%) are the leading sources of fake news about government and politics,” it adds.

The survey was conducted from September 17 to 21, using face-to-face interviews. It was based on a sample of 1,200 representative adults 18 years old and above.

A boy dies in a cycling accident in Berlin after street lights were turned off at night, as Germany faces an energy crunch following the shutdown of Russian gas supplies.

At first glance, the story appears to be a genuine article from the country's top tabloid, Bild, and it was shared on Facebook.

But investigations, including by AFP, found it was disinformation, part of a major campaign in which leading news sites -- mainly in Germany but also other European countries -- were imitated to spread pro-Moscow messages.

In late September, Facebook's parent company Meta took down what it called the "sprawling network" behind the campaign, which it said originated in Russia and focused primarily on Moscow's invasion of Ukraine.

More than 60 sites impersonated legitimate news organisations, including in Britain, France, Italy and Ukraine, Meta said. According to researchers, among the impersonated media were Britain's Guardian, Germany's Der Spiegel and Italy's ANSA news agency. — AFP

Reps. Josephine Lacson-Noel (Malabon) and Florencio Gabriel Noel (An Waray Partylist) file House Bill No. 2971 criminalizing the creation and dissemination of fake news, which they say "poisons the minds of our citizens by distorting the truth."  — Philstar.com/Franco Luna

Sen. Risa Hontiveros calls on the National Telecommunication Commission to act on fake election-related text messages, particularly after messages claiming she, and Sens. Franklin Drilon and Francis "Kiko" Pangilinan are calling for a boycott of convenience store chain 7 Eleven and other companies that supposedly support the UniTeam slate.

"Let me just categorically deny that text message. Walang katotohanan ang anumang panawagan namin ng boycott dahil lang iba diumano ang ikinakampanya nila. Napakarami nang fake news sa social media, ngayon pati mga text messages sinakop narin," Hontiveros also says. 

The Kremlin defends new legislation that could see people jailed for up to 15 years for publishing "fake news" about the Russian military, saying the country was facing "an information war".

"The law was necessary and needed urgently because of the unprecedented -- not even campaign -- but information war that has been unleashed against our country," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, underscoring that a "harsh" law was required undet the circumstances. — AFP

The storming of the US Capitol pushed social media platforms to crack down on those who peddled the "stolen election" claim that drove it, but the narrative has survived and flourished online, in right-wing media and among Republican politicians.

Donald Trump's supporters acted on the baseless allegation that widespread vote-rigging robbed him of victory in the 2020 presidential election, with the January 6, 2021 violence ultimately leading Twitter and Facebook to suspend his accounts.

His claims were rejected by election officials and dozens of courts, but polling shows many Americans still believe the "big lie" that he defeated Joe Biden — a falsehood that has damaging consequences far beyond the riot.

"These persistent claims pose a threat to the sanctity and trust in our democratic system writ large," said Nina Jankowicz, global fellow at the Wilson Center.

False information about elections is not new — Trump made similar claims in 2016 before he defeated Hillary Clinton — but social media, which thrives on polarization, offers a place for it to spread, and for people who believe it to organize and wreak havoc. — AFP

A Singaporean blogger was ordered Wednesday to pay almost $100,000 in damages for defaming the prime minister by sharing an article on Facebook linking the leader to a corruption scandal.

Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong had accused Leong Sze Hian of spreading false claims about him over the article related to the money-laundering scandal at state fund 1MDB in Malaysia.

Critics say the case is the latest example of the tightly-regulated city-state's government being heavy-handed and seeking to silence dissent online.

Singapore's leaders have frequently turned to the courts to take on critics, ranging from political opponents to foreign media outlets, and insist such action is necessary to protect their reputations.

High Court Judge Aedit Abdullah found in Lee's favor, and ordered Leong to pay him Sg$133,000 (US$99,000). Lee had sought Sg$150,000.— AFP

Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey is funding research aimed at changing the way information circulates on social media — with the goal of combating online violence, hate and disinformation.

Dorsey announces he would fund an independent team of five architects, engineers, and designers — dubbed Bluesky — to develop an "open and decentralized standard for social media."

In a series of posts, he explained the goal is for Twitter to ultimately be subject to this new standard, which would be open to adoption by fellow social media networks like Facebook or TikTok. — AFP

File photo from AFP

The Bureau of Immigration slams as false a now-viral post by convicted scammer and self-confessed fraudster Xian Gaza detailing how he supposedly evaded immigration inspection at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport.

"His story sounds like it was taken straight out of an action movie," says Immigration spokesperson Dana Sandoval.  

"He said it so himself, his story is based on what happened, but sadly it’s not what actually happened."

India's Ministry of Information and Broadcasting on Tuesday withdraws a sweeping new order clamping down on journalists accused of spreading fake news.

The U-turn came hours after the ministry announced that reporters' press credentials could be suspended simply for an accusation of spreading fake news.

The rules, issued by a government often deeply sensitive to media criticism, angered journalists and opposition politicians, who called it an attempt to gag the media in the run-up to national elections expected next year. — AP

At the University of the Philippines Los Baños, Jason Vincent Cabanes, author of the study "Architects of Networked Disinformation," says fake news is the outcome of the normalization and professionalization of political deception, UPLB perspective reports.

Now: Mr. Jason Vincent A. Cabanes,PhD talks about the aims of his lecture. pic.twitter.com/vFx8i1elDh

— UPLB Perspective (@uplbperspective) March 22, 2018

Networked disinformation have the following characteristics:

• Has roots in advertising and PR industries
• Project-based and sideline jobs
• Competitive collegialities that lead to volatile virality in messaging
• Architecture that enables moral displacement

Cabanes says the chief architects of such disinformation are advertising and PR executives who recruit and lead disinformation teams, usually bored by corporate marketing tasks.

'They see digital political operations as a challenge," UPLB Perspective quotes Cabanes as saying.

At Democracy and Disinformation, a conference on why fake news and other forms of disinformation threaten our freedoms, a group of panelists discusses President Rodrigo Duterte as a main source of false claims.

Veteran journalist Ellen Tordesillas of VERA Files says it's difficult for journalists to maintain accuracy in covering the president amid the burden to report accurately what the source says.

University of the Philippines professor Diosa Labiste, meanwhile, is concerned about the practice of lying among leaders.

Labiste: Lies allow for a polarized, violent politics. It would intensify political aggression. Truth is presupposed in human communication. You cannot sexify it. You just tell the truth. #FightDisinfo #factcheckph

— VERA Files (@verafiles) February 12, 2018