K Shanmugam: Government to consider how to address fake news issue

Minister of Law K Shanmugam told Parliament on Monday (3 April) that the Government is “seriously considering” how to address the issue of fake news. He will announce the Government’s position on tackling the issue upon completion of a review.
He pointed to the current law in which there are limited remedies to deal with these falsehoods, giving an example that it is an offence under the Telecommunications Act to transmit messages knowing it is false.
“But these remedies are ineffective. They were really looking at a time before this new age. The circulation of falsehoods can grow viral today very quickly, and so we need to do more,” he said.
The Minister gave an example, saying that The Real Singapore (TRS) is a website that regularly generated fake news for profit, citing examples such as a 2015 piece which claimed a commotion between Thaipusam participants and police was sparked by complaints from a Filipino family.
He then pointed to an article written in 2015 where the site claimed a commotion between Thaipusam participants and police was sparked by complaints from a Filipino family.
The Minister said that one of the co-founders of TRS has since set up the States Times Review website, which continues in a similar vein of publishing fake news from outside Singapore.
In another example given, Mr Shanmugam mentioned that last August, the States Times Review claimed a near-zero turnout for former president SR Nathan’s funeral and that kindergarten kids were forced to attend, in an attempt to paint him as an unpopular president.
Mr Shanmugam then stated that the whole purpose is to purvey falsehoods, mislead the public and render truth completely irrelevant.
Another example Mr Shanmugam spoke about was when All Singapore Stuff published a fake story in November last year on how the rooftop of Punggol Waterway Terraces had collapsed.
He said, “The police, civil defence, all had to be mobilised and deployed to investigate the claim. Taxpayers pay the cost for all of this. Another post widely circulated on social media falsely claimed a childcare centre in River Valley made children sleep on the floor, eat rotten fruit.”
“There was a public outcry, but can you imagine the impact on the childcare operator?” he asked.
Mr Shanmugam also noted that countries such as Germany and the United Kingdom (UK) have called for a tough stance against fake news. While the UK is launching a parliamentary probe into fake news, Germany is considering a draft law which will require social networks such as Facebook to remove fake news that boils down to illegal content, or risk fines of up to 50 million euros.
The Minister stressed that hoaxes can have real world consequences, saying that if the news were not quickly corrected, they can cause harm to Singaporeans, alarm to public, emergency resources will have to be diverted, and reputations of businesses and people can be completely, unreasonably, and unfairly damaged.
“All because some nasty people seek to profit from this,” he stated.
Mr Shanmugam also said that there is a much more serious dimension to all of this.
“Fake news today, we must assume can be used as an offensive weapon by foreign agencies and foreign government to get into the public mind, to destabilise the public, to psychologically weaken them,” he stated.
He then said that that is a very serious threat and it will be naive for Singaporeans to believe that governments or state agencies do not engage in this.
“There is enough evidence that they do,” he added.