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Facebook and Twitter have been accused of being slow to respond to fake news. Photo: DPA
Opinion
Ross Tapsell
Ross Tapsell

Why Facebook and Google must do more in Southeast Asia to combat fake news

  • The tech giants should take down more disinformation and make it less lucrative to produce it
  • Meanwhile, credible media outlets need the funds to counter disinformation, and populations the tools to recognise it
From governments to NGOs, Facebook to Google, academics to policymakers, almost everyone agrees that disinformation and fake news are a growing problem. What they tend to disagree on are the solutions.
The authorities in Southeast Asia have often preferred to introduce specific regulations and laws to provide greater tools for police to arrest citizens who create and distribute such material. But these laws are controversial and have been met with criticism from civil society groups and political opposition. Most notable was Malaysia’s 2018 anti-fake news laws introduced by the previous Barisan Nasional government, but repealed by the new administration led by Pakatan Harapan. Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad argued: “When you have a law to prevent people from airing views, then we are afraid that the government itself may abuse it, as has happened in the past. We do not want any government, whether this or the next one, to abuse such a law.”
In Indonesia, the highly controversial Electronic Transactions Law was created in 2008 to address commentary online, and has been used increasingly to arrest citizens for creating or distributing hoax news. Freedom House, a US-based watchdog, in 2016 argued that the law “continues to represent a serious threat to internet freedom. Often resulting in pretrial detention, charges facilitate retaliation for online expression, even in cases that never make it to court”.
Indonesia’s elections this year saw unrest widely blamed on fake news. Photo: Xinhua

Arrests carried out during Indonesia’s 2019 presidential election have become highly politicised to suggest they were made only against those who spread material against President Joko Widodo.

Meanwhile, global tech companies such as Facebook, Google and Twitter have been slow to recognise the problem and the damage their platforms can cause to a society’s pluralism, public sphere and democratic quality. In Southeast Asia, these companies have funded “fact-checking” organisations whose role is to counter fake news material – first by exposing it as a hoax on their own websites, and second by establishing more direct links to platforms such as Facebook to have the fake news content taken down.

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However, research on the role of fact-checkers suggests they are having minimal impact. As The New York Times describes it, these quite lowly funded organisations are “feeling overrun”. Fact-checkers can take away the important work of journalists, and if the response from platforms is too slow, the messages will have already been spread widely on social media and messaging platforms such as WhatsApp. This being so, social media companies “stand accused of using civil society collaborations as PR stunts to rehabilitate their image”.
Most Southeast Asians get their information from messaging apps. Photo: Bloomberg

TOWARDS SOLUTIONS

What, then, is the solution to the growing problem of fake news?

This year Facebook and Twitter have seemingly trialled a new approach, which is to more transparently yet sporadically take down content deemed “inauthentic behaviour”. In early 2019 Facebook took down hundreds of accounts, pages and groups in Indonesia linked to a group called Saracen. The profiles, on both Instagram and Facebook, “frequently posted about local and political news, including topics like upcoming elections, alleged election fraud, candidate views, and alleged misconduct of political figures”, Facebook said. Saracen members, who have previously spread hate speech against the Indonesian president and other political figures, already gained notoriety two years ago when they were arrested.

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In the Philippines in the middle of this year, Facebook took down 200 profiles, groups and pages belonging to a prominent public relations and social media campaigner, Nic Gabunada, who was widely reported to be the key strategist behind President Rodrigo Duterte’s social media pages and campaigning. Unlike some other takedowns, Facebook decided to directly name Gabunada. His personal Facebook account was also taken down. In this case, Facebook took action only recently, whereas media organisations such as Rappler acted two years earlier in exposing trolls used to promote Duterte’s campaign and subsequent administration.
Global tech companies such as Google have been slow to recognise the damage their platforms can cause to a society’s pluralism. Photo: AP

In early October in Indonesia, 42 Facebook pages and 34 Instagram accounts connected to the issue of growing hostilities in West Papua were taken down by Facebook. The tech giant also named a company, InsightID, saying the network spent about US$300,000 on Facebook adverts paid for in rupiah, and was linked to a centre founded by former Indonesian vice-president Jusuf Kalla. An extensive social media operation by West Papuan “trolls” was exposed a few weeks earlier by an investigation jointly done by a BBC data analytics researcher and researchers at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.

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In these high-profile cases, it seems the hard work of exposing fake news “factories” was first done by credible journalists and researchers, and Facebook and Twitter then responded, sometimes years later. More work needs to be done by platforms themselves to mitigate matters before they become a huge problem. In many cases, this would mean social media platforms not accepting the money in the first place, as Twitter has recently decided to do with regard to political advertising.

Nevertheless, the public “takedowns” and the naming and shaming of actors involved should be encouraged and expanded, given that the problem will continue to grow.

In October 42 Facebook pages and 34 Instagram accounts connected to the issue of growing hostilities in West Papua were taken down. Photo: EPA

The general feeling from those in the PR industry, journalists, and academics who research disinformation is that Facebook and Twitter are far too slow to respond, while YouTube (owned by Google) is doing even less, and needs to take more responsibility for the way viral videos rapidly spread disinformation through WhatsApp and Telegram in Southeast Asia. A previous study on disinformation in the Philippines found that YouTube had become a cesspool of conspiracy theories and hyperpartisan news channels that use creative manoeuvres to avoid content policing.

Given that these platforms have not taken greater responsibility for tackling disinformation, governments have more easily been able to justify the introduction of laws which regulate fake news.

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CULTIVATING THE CREDIBLE

Countries that maintain trusted, independent news sources are more able to combat fake news, because their citizens are able to distinguish responsible, credible journalism from hyperpartisan disinformation. For example, in Australia, fake news is far less of a problem than in Southeast Asia. Disinformation spread via social media platforms did not play a dominant role in the 2019 Australian national election discourse. A survey by market research firm Roy Morgan found that Australians trusted their independent, national broadcaster the most, and trusted Facebook the least. This is not to say that Australia is a bastion of media independence and quality journalism. Indeed, Rupert Murdoch-owned print and cable television media have consistently campaigned for the Liberal Party through hyperpartisan content. But disinformation producers and fake news “factory” syndicates operating as profitable businesses via social media-driven disinformation are far less prevalent in Australia. Other examples of reliable public service broadcasting include NHK in Japan, and the BBC in Britain.
Viral videos rapidly spread disinformation through WhatsApp in Southeast Asia. Photo: Reuters

The rise of fake news is a reflection of longer-term sociopolitical dysfunction in a region with authoritarian legacies where citizens have learned to distrust mainstream media and official sources as state propaganda. During Indonesia’s New Order authoritarian rule, for example, the practice of passing on information, rumours and gossip became a heightened aspect of being an Indonesian citizen, as well as a way to understand the real story or to get extra information. A non-government source, particularly if it is someone trusted, became more believable. This practice continues in Southeast Asia today, and has simply moved online to personal WhatsApp communication, closed Facebook groups and micro-influencers on Instagram.

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The solution to disinformation cannot be found in overly general anti-fake news laws promulgated in the region. More efforts should be spent on improving mainstream media and the journalistic quality in the region, and building trust between the public and official news media. A trusted, independent public broadcaster and news service is not a prominent fixture in Southeast Asia’s media landscape. Funding is a huge problem, of course. Much of Southeast Asia’s public media looks more like the United States model, where television station PBS is underfunded and ignored by viewers, and overpowered by privately owned cable news stations such as Fox and CNN. As we have seen with the 2016 election and disinformation production, the US is hardly a model worth following, yet when media executives in Southeast Asia discuss their vision for their company’s future and the trends in the industry, they often point to America.

Ross Tapsell is a senior lecturer and researcher at the Australian National University’s College of Asia and the Pacific. He is also a visiting fellow at the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore. This is an edited version of a paper titled “Combating Fake News in Southeast Asia”, published in ISEAS Perspective No 100 by the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute

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