News & Reviews:   Fake News

When it comes to information, the wrong kind is often harmful. With the COVID-19 pandemic, spreading misinformation is the last thing we need. Facebook has been working on this in recent weeks, using a global network of fact-checkers and an AI to prevent the spread of wrong info. But it seems that the AI for Facebook Ads isn't doing too good of a job.

While fake news is not something new, but it has apparently become a national problem when the World Health Organization (WHO) have to step in. In fact, WHO even describe "fake news about COVID-19 is as dangerous as the virus itself". 

Today, the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) just released an official statement on some new fake news that have been circulating around. In this short announcement, somebody has apparently been forwarding fake news about people being fined for stepping outside of their houses. This is of course, ridiculous to begin with and there's more.

With the government announcing an extension to the Movement Control Order (MCO), we're going to be stuck at home till 14 April 2020. During this time, it's important that we not fall for fake news that are created to mislead us. The Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) has been working on keeping track on the fake news so we'll know what to look out for.

The coronavirus outbreak has now penetrated even more countries out of China recently which does not just rise the health concern but fake news is also spreading out rapidly. Today, Google has seemed to be hiding all the apps that are related to the coronavirus.

This morning, I'm sure most of you have received a message from your friends and family about KL Sentral being quarantined due to COVID-19 virus. The news spread fast on WhatsApp and Twitter and apparently, news has it that the authorities are shutting down the north and east side of KL Sentral area. But that is not really true and here's what we found out. 

With something as serious as the coronavirus happening, it's important to know what news is legit or fake. Just two days ago, our own Ministry of Health sent out a list of the fake news that's been going around. In the same way, Facebook is taking steps to limit the spreading of false information.

The coronavirus has sure made a lot of people worried about their safety. When we start to hear news about people fainting and being quarantined, news tends to spread virally and thanks to the Internet, it's hard to pinpoint which one is real or fake news. It even got us wearing face masks in airports where there is no official suspected case yet.

That said, your friends and family (especially relatives) would often forward chain messages about the latest coronavirus cases in Malaysia. If you're annoyed about that (which we are too), we managed to get a heads-up about which one is #fakenews thanks to official Ministry of Health, Malaysia on its Twitter post.

There’s been a lot of news about the Wuhan Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCov) and not all of them are true. MCMC and the Ministry of Health Malaysia have both come out with statements about the spreading of fake coronavirus news. Basically, check your sources first before spreading it.

Facebook Malaysia announced their third-party fact-checking program today by partnering with Agence France-Presse (AFP) to review and rate the accuracy of stories, photos and videos on Facebook in Malaysia. When third-party fact-checkers like AFP rates a story or content as false it will appear lower in your News Feed and those who shared it will be notified.