WHAT CAN USERS DO?
Prof Saifuddin stated there’s an onus on social media customers to take steps to confirm the data they’re consuming on such platforms.
“First, confirm the credibility of sources and consider the content material with a rational thoughts. Search for logic within the content material, determine the deceptive narratives and query if there could be a hidden propaganda behind,” he stated.
“Second, report suspected misinformation. If you happen to suspect that the data isn’t true, report it. Social media platforms will evaluation the request and if the data is true, they may let the content material keep and so there isn’t any hurt performed.
“Lastly, and maybe an important step, we should recognise and acknowledge our personal biases earlier than we start to guage or share the content material with our family and friends.”
CHALLENGES IN REGULATION
Specialists say there are a number of challenges in addressing the misinformation phenomenon on social media platforms.
For one, real-time fact-checking and efforts to appropriate or debunk faux data are troublesome as they unfold so quickly.
Savvy customers have additionally learnt to bypass content material moderation filters, reminiscent of by changing flagged key phrases.
Prof Saifuddin stated governments want to use regulatory pressures as social media platforms, being profit-driven enterprise entities, are unlikely to prioritise consumer security and content material accuracy if left to their very own units.
“Higher rules will solely be applied by means of regulatory pressures, by means of authorities, governments and third events,” he stated.
“By themselves, social media firms will solely care about markets the place their enterprise will probably be hit. They might ignore different contexts as a result of they don’t matter.”
It is vital for social media platforms to have higher methods in labelling misinformation and disinformation, and limiting the propagation of false materials which have already scaled, he added.
Dr Boichak stated the implementation of legal guidelines surrounding social media platforms and the content material they permit is essential within the age of technological advances and elevated dependence on on-line data.
“It will have more and more necessary implications on our understanding of wars and on our skill to take part in among the discourse round them,” she stated. “(This may also have an effect on) the power of the nefarious actors to govern among the discourse surrounding these occasions.”
