KUALA LUMPUR: Political and social media expert Associate Professor Dr Sara Chinnasamy said the production of fake news goes into overdrive during major events and incidents that affected the people.
She cited the 14th General Election and the death of fireman Muhammad Adib Mohd Kassim as examples where fake news spread like wildfire.
“The situation (fake news) in the country is under control and I would rate it six out of 10,” she said, adding that most fake news circulated on social media was political in nature and carried defamatory elements.
“It gets worse when there are major events and irresponsible quarters will abuse the situation to gain political mileage or attention from the public,” said Sara, who is attached to Shah Alam Universiti Teknologi Mara’s Faculty of Communication and Media Studies.
On whether society was becoming gullible that it allowed fake news to spread easily, Sara said the advancement of technology and the growing popularity of social media allowed news to travel fast.
“People tend to share everything using their smartphones.
“At the same time, there are those who want to be the first to break news through postings on Facebook and other social media platforms.
“They enjoy seeing their posts getting ‘likes’ and being shared by other people, without realising that they are perpetuating fake news.”
She disagreed with views that the anti-fake news mechanism introduced by the government, such as sebenarnya.my, had failed to curb fake news.
“It is impossible for sebenarnya.com to cover everything as many issues go viral.
“Fake news will continue to be shared and the only way to curb this is by having higher social media literacy.
“Most people lack knowledge of legislation governing social media usage.
“Punishing people who create and spread fake news will serve as a deterrent and lesson for others not to commit the same offence.”
