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Singapore’s new law to combat the spread of fake news online, the Protection from Online falsehoods and Manipulation Act, allows the government to impose hefty fines on social networks and jail terms on individuals who publish anything deemed harmful to public order or that might damage Singapore’s relations with friendly countries.
Some studies estimate that more than 70 countries have already been subjected to misinformation campaigns, making the idea of trying to stop such coordinated and malicious initiatives seem reasonable. The problem lies, fundamentally, in how to do it: in the case of Singapore, the government will decide what news is false. In contrast, Finland intends to do so through on education and public awareness campaigns, as well as tools that allow people to verify news before sharing it, surely a more democratic approach.
Singapore’s government says ministers and officials will not be able to make decisions arbitrarily, but we know how easy it is for those in power to justify their actions and to abuse the law. The idea that the government is the arbiter of truth is extremely paternalistic and in the case of Singapore has rightly raised fears that this is simply a way to stifle dissent. What happens when somebody anonymously reports corruption or some other official malfeasance? It can easily be dismissed as false news, the information is withdrawn and a fine imposed on the social network. It’s a dictator’s dream, the exercise of power by controlling the supply of information, and taking the Ministry of Truth far beyond George Orwell’s nightmare vision of “Nineteen Eighty-Four."
The problem is that we’re lazy and prone to conspiracy theories: it can’t be true if the government says so. The idea of having to do some research to establish if something is true is not that appealing to many people. But we need to develop our capacity for critical thinking individually, through education, practices and tools that allow us to verify information. Schools need to teach children and young people to base their opinions on as wide a range of sources as possible. We need to junk textbooks and instead teach children how to search, verify and contrast information for themselves. And that approach needs to apply throughout the education system and into wider society. In today’s world, and even more so in tomorrow’s, education means developing our critical faculties.
Subcontracting critical thinking out to the government, social networks or any other platform is a losing game and underestimates the ability of individuals, organizations and governments to try to manipulate us and control what we think and do.
Obviously, this doesn’t mean we should do nothing: requiring social platforms to identify non-genuine coordinated activity, eliminate false accounts that participate in disinformation schemes or report activity peaks related to certain events is logical and reasonable, as is punishing the individuals behind them, as happens in the real world. But allowing our governments to decide what constitutes fake news is a bridge too far. If, in addition, the government in question sits at the bottom of international press freedom rankings, so much more so.
