Singapore GE: Facebook promises to fact-check falsehoods, monitor foreign meddling to protect election integrity

SINGAPORE — Social media giant Facebook is making efforts to highlight that it is doing more to protect the integrity of the upcoming General Election (GE) in Singapore, which is due to be held before April 14 next year.

These measures include:

• Having third-party fact-checkers to identify hoaxes or to verify the accuracy of political posts

• An internal team dedicated to tackling election risks and foreign interference

• Conducting outreach programmes to teach political candidates effective and responsible use of its platform

Facebook representatives said in a virtual press conference on Thursday (June 11) that it has recently engaged international news agency Thomson Reuters to join competitor Agence France-Presse (AFP) to fact-check content.

Ms Clara Koh, Facebook’s head of public policy in Singapore, said that the company will be working with these two news agencies to rate content. 

If a content is rated as “false or misleading”, Facebook will reduce its distribution on the platform, she said.

The misleading content will also carry a “false information” warning and a brief statement that it has been checked by independent fact-checkers. 

The content will not be removed. Instead, Facebook users will have the option to view articles written by the fact-checkers to “set the record straight”.

“The intent here is really to give people more information about the content that they're seeing on our platform,” Ms Koh explained, adding that this will enable them to make a more informed decision about what they read, what they trust and what they share.

Facebook’s fact-checking programme itself is not new. Ms Koh said that it has been working with AFP since May last year, and it is now hoping to build the fact-checking capacity in Singapore for the long term.

While Facebook’s representatives were not able to provide more details about Singapore’s fact-checking team, a CNA report in February stated that AFP has one reporter fact-checking on Singapore content remotely from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Ms Koh said that aside from fact-checking, dedicated teams have been looking out for foreign government interference since last year.  

Describing such interference as “particularly egregious”, she said that they range from foreign-led efforts to manipulate public debate in another country to “operations by a government to target its own citizens”.

To reduce such foreign interference, Mr Aidan Hoy, Facebook’s election project public policy manager, pointed to its requirements for putting up socio-political advertisements, which were introduced in September last year.

"Anyone that looks to run those kinds of ads first needs to confirm their identity and their location with Facebook, as well as include a 'paid for by' disclaimer," he said.

Online users may also search for information on political ads using Facebook's ad library.

GETTING POLITICAL PARTIES INVOLVED

Ms Koh said that Facebook will also be “reaching out to all the political parties” in Singapore to ensure that they know how to prevent their accounts from being hacked, as well as how to manage their respective pages according to the platform’s community standards and content policies.

Facebook’s community standards outline what is and is not allowed on the platform.

While it says that the goal is to “ensure that everyone’s voice is valued”, it will take action against content that promotes hate speech or compromises the safety of others, among others.

Other measures include removing fake accounts, and providing reminders to voters to direct them to official information from the Elections Department (ELD).

ELD said on Monday that election candidates will have to follow tighter internet election advertising rules for more transparency and accountability.

With the Covid-19 crisis set to last for quite some time, the next GE could be held in the midst of the pandemic, which would see political parties relying on the internet to reach out to potential voters.  

The world’s biggest social networking site has been the subject of criticism in recent years regarding how it handles political advertisements.

In 2016, Facebook failed to counter Russian interference in the United States’ presidential election and allowed the misuse of user data by defunct political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica. 

Reuters reported in January that ahead of the US presidential elections in November this year, Facebook has since vowed to curb political manipulation of its platform. 

‘DEEP AND WIDE RANGING’ DAMAGE

Some members of political parties here have mixed reactions over whether Facebook is doing enough.

Ms Tin Pei Ling, Member of Parliament for Macpherson Group Representation Constituency, said that one needs to consider how fast misinformation spreads.

Ms Tin, who is also the deputy chairperson for the Communications and Information Government Parliamentary Committee, added that even if corrections were made promptly, it may already be too late. 

“The reverberations (of fake news) can last for many days or months down the road.”

The damage can be “quite deep and wide ranging”, she said, and it would be a pity if someone's decision is based on misinformation.

Mr Jose Raymond, chairman of the Singapore People's Party, shared similar concerns.

The chief strategy officer of a communications firm said that it may be extremely difficult to limit the spread of any defamatory posts, information and memes if someone takes a “screenshot of the lie” and then shares the image via other messaging applications. 

Even with fact-checking mechanisms in place, he said that the damage may continue to spread “without the reader and recipient knowing if the information received is true or fake”.

While he said that independent fact-checkers are helpful, he also questioned what would happen if disputes arose “over the fact-checkers’ fact checking”. 

"The risks of disinformation being spread through the online sphere and across messaging platforms are more acute if the internet ends up becoming the main campaign platform in the upcoming General Election,” he said. 

Mr Spencer Ng, secretary-general of the National Solidarity Party, believes that Singaporeans should be allowed to make their own informed decisions.

He referred to social networking service Twitter making the unprecedented decision to tag a tweet by US President Donald Trump with a fact-checking warning.

Referencing election integrity in the US, Mr Trump had tweeted last month, without evidence: "There is NO WAY (ZERO!) that Mail-In Ballots will be anything less than substantially fraudulent." 

Mr Ng said that the American public was duly warned by Twitter, but allowed to decide “what is right or wrong”. He believes this should be the way in Singapore.

However, he said that the line should be drawn if the content incites hatred, such as racial discord. In such cases, then it should be taken down.