THERE is a scourge out there and it is travelling at maddening speed
on the Internet superhighway.
It is a virus of the new millennium, a result of the convergence of a new age and new technology.
It goes by the name of “fake news”, dressed up in innocuous-looking YouTube videos, Facebook postings and messaging services, such as WhatsApp and Telegram.
We have come a long way from simple hoaxes and April Fool jokes invented in the brick-and- mortar world. Welcome to the 21st century.
There are two worries though. A great amount of clever manipulation is at work here in building this fiction, trapping almost everyone, save the very discerning.
The other is the velocity of circulation of “prefabricated” fake news.
Fake news travels fast, almost at the speed of light. Some people, who are in the know of the Internet of things, blame this millennial disease on algorithms.
The truth is somewhere in between: it is a problem of men and the Internet.
Just consider Malaysia’s cyberspace and its high-speed superhighway. According to the First Quarter 2017 State of the Internet Report by content delivery network service provider Akamai Technologies, Inc., Malaysia has an average Internet connection speed of 8.9mbps and mobile Internet speed of 4.4mbps.
Added to this is the fact that close to 80 per cent of Malaysians are Internet users, many of whom seek news from social media. This is where mirth meets madness.
With some 26 million Malaysians on the superhighway daily and fake news going viral as often as you can say “often”, our mirth should sour into madness.
Consider the case of a video said to be a recording of an event at a hotel in Kuantan, Pahang, with the word “Freemason” displayed as a backdrop.
This is clearly to draw the wrath of a certain section of Malaysians. And it worked, much to the pleasure of the perpetrators.
To quell the uproar in the social media world, no less an authority than Pahang Islamic Religious Department director Datuk Mohamad Noor Abdul Rani had to issue a statement clarifying
that no Freemason element was present at the all-ladies gathering.
Just as Pahang was recovering from the freemason fake news, another cyberstorm hit Malaysians.
This time, a video showing a group of Cantonese-speaking girls stripping a girl went viral. Netizens spewed their wrath on social media when a FB posting claimed that it was a bullying incident that took place at a secondary school in Kuantan.
The same posting accused a certain 17-year-old FB user of being one of the bullies captured in the video.
Outraged, the teenager, who wished to remain anonymous, lodged a police report denying her involvement in the purported bullying.
As it turned out, no such incident took place at the alleged school, but much police time was wasted probing into fake news. State police chief Datuk Rosli Ab Rahman said the event depicted in the video did not happen in Pahang.
He said the Cantonese spoken in the video sounded similar to that used in Hong Kong, which hinted at the foreign origin of the video.
The threat of fake news is humongous and real. The two fake videos are just the tip of the iceberg. And, the authorities know this.
This is one reason behind the move by the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission to set up an online portal “sebenarnya.my” to act as a guide for Netizens to verify the truth in the murky world of cyberspace.
Admittedly, fake news is not easy to make out, especially with emergent software making fake seem real.
But, Malaysians must try to spot the fake, otherwise, panic or outrage may result.
We all remember the made-up story of a pizza restaurant in Washington, DC, which claimed that a paedophile ring involving high-profile members of the Democratic Party was operating out of the basement of the restaurant.
Believing the fake story to be real, a man walked into the restaurant, which, by the way, did not have a basement, and fired an assault rifle. Fortunately, no one was injured.
To avoid such incidents, we have to recall lessons learnt in the real world. We need to find a way to know who to trust and who to believe.
This is true of the real world, and, it is true, too, of the virtual world.
The writer is Pahang staff correspondent. Seeks pleasure in contemplative pursuits like viewing thought-provoking documentaries and reading