Measuring Public Interest Threshold and Maintaining Public Trust under Protection From Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act (POFMA) Framework

The following questions were moved earlier —

Ms Anthea Ong asked the Minister for Communications and Information (a) how is the public interest threshold of online statements of falsehoods determined and measured under the Protection From Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act (POFMA); (b) whether the Ministry will consider recommending that Ministers state which public interest criteria under section 7(1b) of POFMA are met and how so, when requesting for a direction to be issued; and (c) whether the Ministry will consider creating a central listing of all issued directions on the POFMA website.

Ms Anthea Ong asked the Minister for Communications and Information (a) what is the Ministry's position on perceptions of a partisan political bias over the recent applications of POFMA and how this may impact public trust in objectivity and independence of the Government's instruments of combatting online falsehoods; and (b) what steps are being taken to maintain public trust in light of such perceptions, especially given the critical role of public trust in buttressing society against coordinated, malicious fake news.

The Minister for Communications and Information (Mr S Iswaran): Much obliged, Mr Deputy Speaker.

I think the Member had a few questions on first the question was the identity of the person or entity who puts out the falsehood matter. As I have explained very clearly the process, and I think this was widely convassed during the debate on the Second Reading, the focus is on the fact, or falsehood as it were, in accordance, and do we have the existing legislation that backs that assessment and secondly, whether there is a public interest concerned that merits action. That is a judgement made by the Minister, the domain Minister advised by his officials.

Therefore, the answer is, and I think what the Member is alluding to, is the fact that the first few POFMA actions appear to have been issued against individuals who are either politicians or affiliated with political party or political parties. I would say that that is a convergence, some might say unfortunate convergence or coincidence, but also indicate to a certain pattern of communication that exists out there. But whatever the case may be that is the situation today but it does not mean that that is going to be the situation going forward. Because ultimately whether there is a falsehood, there is a public threshold and if so, then what is the appropriate course of action.

The point was also made about falsehoods that are not viral whether we can use alternative mechanisms. I think in talking about, in discussing this matter we have to look by virility, which was one of the points, but remember we also talked about the virulence of the falsehood. And you have to take both into account, because there will be instances where the nature of the falsehood is such that it goes to the core of the credibility and the standing of our institutions and it deserves a response under POFMA. And such a response has the additional impact of ensuring that future such commentary would be guided or advised by this action. So, there is a multiplicty of factors and I think it would be a too blunt to just look at it in terms of one criterion like virility.

Having said that I think the Member's point was do we have alternative mechanisms, and I want to assure him that we continue to be actively involved in the education of our citizens on this matter. In fact, both Ms Anthea Ong and Mr Walter Theseira have raised this point before during the Second Reading. It is an important point that we have an educated, discerning citizenry, we must ensure they are well informed.

I would add that we have also, if Members would have noticed, in some cases issued statements rather than a POFMA direction. And that has also occurred in the last several weeks. So, I think if you look at it in totality, we have to take into account the overall impact and then we have to consider what is the proportionate response and then, be prepared to take it and if it so happens that some of the people involved are politically affiliated, well, that is the consequence of their actions.

Ms Anthea Ong (Nominated Member): I thank the Minister again. In terms of the thousands of fake news that are possibly floating around the Internet – and you have turned my question around to answer my other question which is pretty brilliant, I must say – yes, it does not seem far reaching when you turned it around to say that way. But my question was actually given there are thousands of fake news floating around in the Web, does the POFMA Office monitor and flag the non-partisan news and statements that are made. Because there are so many out there, one of which that came to my mind was the fake NUS group and we did not do anything until Facebook took it down themselves. So, my concern is – and the Minister could be right it could just be a convergence of consequences and circumstances – but to have four or five directions POFMA that so partisan in nature, you would understand why there are really genuine concerns from the ground, especially like I said, there are actually thousands of fake news out there that could also be in the public interest to actually POFMA them.

Mr S Iswaran: Mr Deputy Speaker, I did not mean to turn it around. I was merely using the facts that the Member cited to make the case. But having said that I think the key point here is first do we monitor. As I said the resources are limited but yes there is some effort to monitor because we have to ensure that having set out this legislation and its intent, we do follow it through in practice. But in some ways it is no different for the other kinds of activities that we have too. If you take, for example, things to do with online gambling and so on, we try to do some pre-emptive, but we also have to to rely sometimes on reports or inputs coming in and our POFMA Office people combined with several other agencies make the assessment and so on.

So, the answer is yes there is some effort to monitor but, primarily, I think we are looking at those cases which are egregious and those that are egregious will pop up quite naturally and we know what they are and we can deal with it.

The other point was, what was it again? But I was not sure what you were getting to.

Ms Anthea Ong: There are thousands of fake news out there that are non-partisan but actually are in the public interest to be POFMA-ed.

Mr S Iswaran: That is an interesting point because the Member seems to be making the argument that, if instead of four against the previous four cases, we now had eight and four were non-partisan, that would look better?

Well, I beg to differ. But I would say that I think basically we monitor. I think if the Member's point is, are we only training our sights on certain types of people or organisations, the answer is no. The Member can actually see that from the kind of actions that are being taken. And I think, as I have said and I am prepared to re-state this, which is that our response will be targeted and proportional. I think we have to look at it in the context of all that we have described and we have to take appropriate action.