{"id":121427,"date":"2017-10-04T22:28:19","date_gmt":"2017-10-05T02:28:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=121427"},"modified":"2017-10-04T22:28:19","modified_gmt":"2017-10-05T02:28:19","slug":"pcoo-exec-sees-need-for-legal-definition-of-fake-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2017\/10\/04\/pcoo-exec-sees-need-for-legal-definition-of-fake-news\/","title":{"rendered":"PCOO exec sees need for legal definition of fake news"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"FAKE<\/a>
FAKE NEWS HEARING. Senator Grace Poe (foreground), chair of the Committee on Public Information and Mass Media, listens to Presidential Communications Operations Office (PCOO) Asst. Sec. Ana Maria Paz Banaag during the public hearing on the proliferation of fake and misleading news and false information on October 4, 2017 at the Senate in Pasay City. Beside Banaag are PCOO Usec. Joel Egco (left) and PCOO Asst. Sec. Margaux “Mocha” Uson. (PNA photo by Avito C. Dalan)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

MANILA<\/strong> \u2014 A Communications official on Wednesday said that there is a need to find a legal definition for the term fake news noting that the problem has reached \u201calarming proportions.\u201d<\/p>\n

“The first and the most important thing to do is to find a legal definition for fake news,\u201d Philippine News Agency (PNA) supervising Undersecretary Joel Sy Egco told a Senate panel during a hearing on fake news.<\/p>\n

Egco explained that there should be an effort to clearly define fake news and determine its parameters before penalizing those who would create or spread them.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere should be clearly-established and identifiable elements in spotting fake news. For starters, we can argue that fake news is \u2018the unscrupulous and malicious propagation of information that aims to deliberately mislead or misinform a targeted audience or tend to cause panic, division, chaos, violence and hate among the general public when the source or author has full knowledge of the truth or even factual details about a particular issue of interest,\u2019\u201d Egco said.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut defining fake news, spotting them or penalizing those acts are easier said than done\u2026Thus, the need for a carefully studied, well-thought of and generally accepted measure,\u201d he added noting that it would discourage people from committing unlawful acts.<\/p>\n

Media literacy<\/strong><\/p>\n

Because there were barely ways to stop people from sharing fake news, Egco also stressed the importance of public education.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have to adopt and embark on such a program if only to educate the public on the more productive uses of social media and the consequences of using these platforms in carrying out a sinister plan,\u201d Egco said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSocial media literacy could provide the key to solving it (the problem of fake news),\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

He said it is also worthy to consider creating a body to go after fake news sources.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have to find a highly credible and competent body to do the job\u2026should there be a need to put up such a body, it should be well-represented by all stakeholders, probably a Commission on Freedom of sorts,\u201d Egco said.<\/p>\n

He said the solution to the problem of fake news requires a \u201cmulti-sectoral and multi-disciplinary approach to public education on the eradication of fake news as the centerpiece of the engagement.\u201d<\/p>\n

Egco said that his office would submit a position paper on the pending measures.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Presidential Communications Operations Office (PCOO) Assistant Secretary Ana Maria Banaag backed Egco\u2019s suggestion and added that amendments to the Cybercrime law could also be made.<\/p>\n

Senator Risa Hontiveros, for her part, said that the government, in essence, already knew the definition of fake news as it even held a roundtable discussion \u201cCountering Fake News and Communicating the Right Information\u201d about the topic.<\/p>\n

Egco explained that the discussion was a gathering of media personalities from ASEAN to formulate a regional approach to combatting fake news but not to come up with a legal definition for it.<\/p>\n

Interaksyon editor-in-chief Roby Alampay, meanwhile, expressed support for Egco\u2019s proposal.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne thing obvious at this point is that nobody agrees on one definition (of fake news),\u201d Alampay said.<\/p>\n

In an interview with reporters after the hearing, Poe said that it was too early to tell if Egco\u2019s proposal is \u201csomething we can sustain\u201d and could not say what legislation she could craft based on the hearing.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere should be government accountability but we don\u2019t know yet if it will be something we can sustain. I want to able to collate and analyze what has been discussed in this hearing before I start spewing suggestions on this legislation,\u201d Poe said.<\/p>\n

Oxymoron<\/strong><\/p>\n

Vera Files president Ellen Tordesillas, one of the resource persons invited to the hearing, however, said that she is personally \u201cuncomfortable\u201d with the term fake news because it was an oxymoron.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019s right to call it fake news. Fake news are lies masquerading as truth,\u201d Tordesillas said explaining that an element of news is that it was to be \u201caccurate.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tordesillas said the actual problem lies in public officials spreading lies stressing that \u201caccountability should be on the sources.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAng nakikita kong problema ang opisyal ng pamahalaan na nagsasabi ng kasinungalingan<\/em>\u00a0(What I see as the problem is when government officials tell lies). Social media are just platforms,\u201d Tordesillas said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat is deplorable in officials spreading fake news is they are doing this on taxpayer\u2019s money,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

Another resource person, ABS-CBN Senior Vice President Ging Reyes, said the term fake news should be replaced with the term \u201cmisinformation.\u201d\u00a0(With reports from Ni\u00f1a Venus-OJT)<\/em>\u00a0(PNA)<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MANILA \u2014 A Communications official on Wednesday said that there is a need to find a legal definition for the …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":121429,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,95],"tags":[9322,26091],"class_list":["post-121427","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","category-news-ph","tag-philippine-news-agency","tag-undersecretary-joel-sy-egco","mauthors-azer-parrocha","mauthors-philippine-news-agency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121427","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=121427"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121427\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/121429"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=121427"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=121427"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=121427"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}