Photo: The Economic Times
Fake news can be extremely clickbaity, not to mention harmful.
The Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) set up the website Sebenarnya.my two years ago to counter the issue.
According to Gobind Singh Deo, the site has since received over 70 million views!
"The portal recorded over 70 million visitors since it was set up in March 2017, with an average of 2.4 million views a month," the Communications and Multimedia Minister said.
Gobind Singh also added that the portal received 3,361 reports from the public regarding news which could not be verified. That’s quite a lot, but that’s what happens when it becomes easy to spread information around- unfortunately everyone turns into a journalist.
Photo: Trendmicro
"The number of reports of fake news from members of the public also increased by 55% from 340 last year to 572 as of September this year," he said.
Addressing the increase in the rise of complaints on fake news, Gobind said it can be seen that the public is now more alert about fake news and the consequences of spreading false information.
He said both MCMC and the ministry are also working together with others in order to better counter the spread of viral fake news. We all know how easily that can happen - one retweet, one screenshot, and a few shares later, news can easily go viral.
Gobind further mentioned that a fact-checker system is currently under works. This system would help the public to verify their news source, which would help to clarify information a lot better.
We think this is a good step forward! What say you?
By: Celestine Foo
