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LettersWhat Hong Kong’s protesting youth need: lessons on how to tell fake news from fact
- To prevent future unrest, Hong Kong youth need to be taught media and information literacy, rather than patriotism, so that they are not swayed by fake news
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The protest movement in Hong Kong has continued for more than five months. Some commentators and lawmakers have floated ideas for the future prevention of such a scenario, such as by strengthening patriotic education.
Education, no doubt, is essential for the prevention of social unrest but, in this instance, the focus should not be on patriotic education. The protest movement has gained and sustained momentum via electronic messages spread widely on the internet through social media and other forums.
This is easily evidenced by the government’s recent application to the High Court for an ex parte injunction to restrain persons from inciting others on the internet to participate in unlawful activities. Clearly, therefore, the subject that should be studied is “media and information literacy”, with an emphasis on efficiently tracking down and critically evaluating electronic sources.
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Electronic media permeates all aspects of life in Hong Kong. The city’s mobile phone penetration rate is over 200 per cent. With such great exposure to electronic sources of information, we run the risk encountering fake news at every turn.
For example, while reporting the current Hong Kong protests, CNN mistakenly posted a headline on its website reading: “Police use petrol bombs and water cannons against Hong Kong protesters”. The fact was, Hong Kong police did not use petrol bombs in crowd management, it was the protesters who threw them.
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Among Hongkongers, youth seem to be the most vulnerable to fake news. According to a 2010 survey by the University of Hong Kong’s Public Opinion Programme, nearly 90 per cent of young internet users were on social media. According to a survey released in 2017 by the Centre for Youth Studies, social media was the young respondents’ major source of public affairs information (46.4 per cent), followed by television (21.7 per cent).
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