"We are not just fighting an epidemic; we're fighting an infodemic."
Looking back to four months ago, when we published our article outlining Singapore's controversial new fake news law – the Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act ('POFMA'), none of us could have imagined how apt the timing for such legislation would be. In the months since, whilst remaining a prickly issue for some, POFMA has proved itself to be a valuable tool in the fight against panic and hysteria surrounding COVID-19, and more specifically against the amount of false information circulating online.
Not without its critics, POFMA continues to divide opinion – with descriptions of the statute including "a Trojan Horse for partisan politics"1. However, with the need for accurate information now being more pertinent than ever, the increased use of POFMA to censor posts relating to the developing COVID-19 situation (including a false post claiming that Singapore had run out of face masks and another claiming that almost a third of the S$48 billion Resilience Budget package would go to Singapore Airlines) appears to have gone largely uncriticised in recent weeks.
The circulation of false information relating to COVID-19 is of course not only affecting Singapore. In his address to the Munich Security Conference in February, the World Health Organisation's director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned that "we are not just fighting an epidemic; we're fighting an infodemic". Indeed, it has been reported that governments around the world are considering the implementation of similar measures to POFMA to tackle the problem.
India, in particular, appears to be suffering from this so called 'infodemic' (or 'misinfodemic') with one especially bizarre example being the Whatsapp rumour that began circulating following an announcement from Prime minister, Narendra Modi, asking Indians to show their appreciation for front-line medical workers by clapping and banging plates. A flurry of social media activity followed with the rumour that the request was part of a strategy to beat the virus. One such message on Whatsapp read: "Clapping, conch blowing by (1.3 BILLION) people at the same time will create so much vibrations that virus will lose all potency." The rumour appeared to be widespread enough for India's Press Information Bureau's fact-checking team to respond: "No! The vibration generated by clapping together will NOT destroy #Coronavirus infection. Amitabh Bachchan, a Bollywood superstar with more than 40 million Twitter followers, also appeared to be taken in by the rumour, tweeting: "An opinion given... Clapping shankh (conch) vibrations reduce/destroy virus potency... Cumulative vibration betters blood circulation".
But, despite pressure mounting from the government on content creators and publishers to comply with POFMA, ensuring information is reliable and accurate (especially in a timely manner) is much easier said than done.
One of our clients aims to deal with this problem by allowing authors to verify authenticity of authorship through a browser extension using blockchain and AI. The FIO TruSign tool is currently being trialled on inaccurate COVID-19 reports circulating on social media and has been included in the COVID-19 Global Hackathon – a partnership between The World Health Organisation, Facebook, Microsoft and other tech companies to provide developers with the opportunity to share in resources to build software solutions to tackle some of the challenges related to the pandemic. Judging for the hackathon happened last Friday and the winners will be announced this Friday, so watch this space!
In the meantime, we will continue to keep our ears to the ground for technology developments assisting in the fight not only against the spread of damaging misinformation, but in the fight against COVID-19 more generally.
Footnote
1 Workers' Party chief Pritam Singh, speaking at forum organised by the Public Policy and Global Affairs Club of Nanyang Technological University, held on 28 January 2020.
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