The Problem Of Online Falsehood And The Need To Provide More Law Combatting The Issue

Do you know that children as young as three years old already began to surf the net (Ward, 2013)? With the current advancement in technology and economic growth in world, people all over the world are expose to the use of internet. Furthermore, it was found that 55. 1% which is equivalent to 3. 2 billion people of world population have access to internet (Miniwatts Marketing Group, 2018). This shows that majority of the world are becoming more IT savvy. However, several problems have arisen due to increase in technology. One of the problems is online falsehood (OF). OF is known as fake news posted online with the aim to target a specific individual or group to cause alarm and distress in the community. It is also to discredit someone who especially holding the appointment in the government with the intention to sway vote from a candidate. This give rise to the question whether government should enforce new law to combat OF or not. I believe that the government should enforce more laws to prevent and combat this problem as the advantages outweigh the disadvantage.

Therefore, this essay will discuss on the importance of combating OF due to social and political issues that could arise if it is being ignored as well as the effectiveness of existing laws. OF could cause several social issues among Singaporeans. One example is disruption of peace and stability in the community. Can you imagine the impact and chaos it creates when one post something as sensitive as a hoax bomb plot in a country? This is exactly what happened on 14 January 2016 when Sze Kai Xuan's allegedly posted online regarding a bomb hoax saying "Today is the day everyone, cherish it before I bomb City Hall” (Channel NewsAsia, 2018b). Due to his hoax, 95% of the public transport security command manpower were diverted to respond to the threat and police officers were stationed at 18 MRT stations to detect for suspicious objects or people (Channel NewsAsia, 2018b). Picture the chaos, panic and disruptions it had on every Singaporeans. All these resources such as manpower and time taken were wasted to investigate the false bomb threat, thus affecting the day-to-day duties. Therefore, the government should indeed emplace a strong and severe law to act as deterrent to other. Another problem with OF is the political issues and divides that it could create among the people. For instance, a rumor regarding the salaries of Singapore’s ministers.

According to Ng (2018), the Prime Minister’s salary was said to be amounted to $4. 5 million per year and claimed that the Government are not upfront regarding on how minister salaries are being calculated. This resulted in some uproar among the locals, leading to distrust and question on the government’s integrity. However, the components on how they were paid are described in a White Paper; tabled in Parliament in 2012 (Channel NewsAsia, 2018c). The Prime Minister is paid $2. 2 million including bonus instead of the $4. 5 million, indicating that the rumour was not true (Ng, 2018). Hence, OF does indeed cause unnecessary political issue to the community with the aim to manipulate the public opinions. This could be seen by what had happened to our neighbouring country; Malaysia. Nadarajan (2018) stated how Malaysia Barisan National lost the parliamentary government as the people had lost trust in them. Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak lost eight of his ministers and 19 deputy ministers due to the IMDB corruption scandal, which led them to be ousted from their government positions (Nadarajan, 2018). This shows that media news has huge impact and influence on the community. Such falsehood against the government could not be tolerated and it needs to be swiftly dealt with to prevent any misconceptions. On the other hand, the existing laws are sufficient to arrest people that cause OF. As stated by Channel NewsAsia (2018a), several laws such as the Section 45 of the Telecommunications Act and Section 4 of the Sedition Act are enough to prosecute the offenders. Furthermore, implementing more laws could lead to prevention of freedom of speech among Singapore citizens. Opinions and views posted online might be regarded wrongly and accused of committing OF. Everyone would be afraid to voice their problem or opinion out if tougher laws are being implemented. Despite this, these existing laws does not immediately apprehend the offenders. The offender will only be prosecuted if they commit OF which would have a big impact on the society such that it would affect Singapore’s security or lead to social problems.

In particular, one incident relating to a Thaipusam ceremony that occurred in 2016. It was reported on ‘The Real Singapore’ (TRS) that a Filipino family was the one that filed a complaint to the police and led to a scuffle between the police and the people at the ceremony (Au-Yong, 2016). This resulted in a tension between the Indian and Filipino community. But, the real story was that the writer had wrote in to TRS to tell them that she was unhappy on how the police had acted to the participants there to stop the ceremony and her statement was even supported by the Assistant Superintendent of Police (Au-Yong, 2016).

The writer’s words were being manipulated by the members of TRS which were then charged with seven charges of sedition relating to writing and disseminating inflammatory news online (Loh, 2016). This shows that there are existing laws that could apprehend this type of people. However, these laws were not efficient and effective enough as the members of TRS were only caught after one of the issues had become big. They had managed to get away with writing false news online for a few years. Think about the damage these people had done that affects the peace among the people in Singapore. If only they were caught earlier, all the tensions that resulted between the two communities due to this news could have been prevented. Therefore, tougher laws should be imposed to combat OF.

In conclusion, OF is an act to spread news that are not true with the aim of targeting a person or group of people. Even though some felt that there are enough laws to curb this issue, I still believe that the government should enact more laws to prevent this issue from becoming worst. Current laws implemented might be able to apprehend offenders but it is not an as efficient and effective as seen in the case of TRS members. Furthermore, it could lead to severe problems such as social and political problems that could affect the stability and peace in Singapore as well as the distrust it might cause in view of the government. It is also important for the government to thoroughly define what is regarded as falsehood, especially those that could cause real problem to a person without affecting the freedom for one to express their views and opinions online.