"Fake news" (or false information) is a very acute problem in Hong Kong society in recent years.
Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor mentioned in this year’s Policy Address that one of the projects to improve national security is to combat “fake news”, and in 40 legislative proposals, he mentioned “to study and review whether laws should be revised or enacted to combat social interactions. The media spread fake news and hate speech, and insult public officials."
I believe no one will question the harm of false information to society.
Since the turmoil in the revision of the regulations, there have been a large number of indistinguishable and even obviously fictitious news circulating on the Internet, adding fuel to social conflicts.
Officials also tend to attribute the dissatisfaction of citizens to the government on the influence of "fake information."
The Secretary for Security Deng Ping-keung once said that some false news has "rooted in the society and planted hidden dangers to public order." Carrie Lam further stated: "The SAR government is the biggest victim of fake news."
But "fake news" is a matter. There is no political standpoint. Based on the analysis of many scholars and democratic politicians, even the pro-government camp has some misinformation, which may sometimes be beneficial to the government.
There are also organizations that believe that social networks are almost "anarchic" and more dangerous than ordinary media. It is impossible to allow false information that attacks the government to circulate in society.
"Fake News" Legislation Controversy-Part 1
Internet rumors slander hostile camps are common
In the "post-truth era," audiences tend to judge events based on emotions and political positions rather than evidence.
In the past two years, Hong Kong’s political conflicts have expanded and social tears have deepened, and rumors have often been used to smear hostile camps.
In the Internet age, the algorithms of social networks have deepened the stratospheric effect, so people with different political stances have formed "parallel time and space," each going to extremes. They only want to believe in information that conforms to their own political stances, and are lazy or unwilling to verify.
In the past two years, the government and the establishment have been criticized by the government and the establishment for false/missing information, including the police "killing people" or "missing" in the 8.31 Prince Station incident in the previous year (lack of evidence, "Fax Agency" has also succeeded Interviewing 6 "suspected victims" and confirming that they are still alive), receiving a new coronavirus test will result in "gene delivery" (without basis), vaccination with the Chinese-made new crown vaccine will "kill people" (without basis), etc.
Ge Peifan: False information leads to social division
Ge Peifan, a member of the DAB Legislative Council, once collected detailed information on fake information legislation. In July, he proposed a legislative motion for members of the Legislative Council to combat false information online.
When she was interviewed by "Hong Kong 01", she severely criticized that some people continued to spread false information on the Internet, causing social divisions and weakening the effect of government policies. The motive was obviously to make the society uneasy. She believed that only with the intention of committing crimes should be regulated by law. .
She also questioned that although the "black storm" camp claimed that there was no major action, she personally suspected that there was someone behind it, and spreading online rumors was one of the actions.
Liu Zhaojia, vice president of the National Hong Kong and Macau Research Association, said that the regulation of news media has always been a matter of the "national security level." As education and media involve the shaping of ideology, online information is also an aspect of the "media" category.
Hong Kong has not had this kind of control for a long time, like "anarchy," but under the new constitutional order of the National Security Law, the government cannot allow false information that attacks the government to circulate in society.
But to deal with the issue of false information, the situation is far more complicated than imagined.
Case 1: The government has not clarified the rumors of compensation for district board members for a long time
In July of this year, government news broke that if the district councillors who took the oath had participated in the primary elections of the democratic parties, had lent the office as a primary ballot station or as a staff member, had signed the "Mo Lao No Regrets" statement, etc. Disqualification and recovery of all salaries and allowances since taking office may involve more than one million yuan per person. If a district councilor voluntarily resigns before being DQ, the authorities will "freeze" the case and will not pursue salary and allowances.
The news led to the resignation of more than 200 district councillors, but the government has since been noncommittal about this statement and has been slow to clarify.
In the end, the government announced the oath arrangements for district board members in early September, but did not account for any salary arrangements.
The government did not pursue all the compensation of the district councillors who were ruled to invalidate the oath, as the rumors alleged, but examined them on a case-by-case basis.
As for the district board members who have resigned, some of them were also charged with partial expenses, and the case was not "frozen".
In response to related incidents, Secretary for Home Affairs Xu Yingwei only stated that "I don't know why they resigned," and asked reporters to ask the resigning district councillors.
The government also did not indicate whether the media reporting on these rumours are also spreading "fake news."
Lin Zheng: If you want to clarify day by day, I don’t want to do it.
The government’s handling of this matter has been criticized. Cai Ziqiang, a senior lecturer in the Department of Politics and Administration at the Chinese University, questioned it. , To reduce the volatility of large-scale DQ district councilors, criticizing this series of operations as being rather "despicable."
However, Chief Executive Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor responded on a radio program earlier this month: "I don’t know that this rumor (claiming salary from district councillors) is from Boundary. We have a lot of rumors every day. If every day we ( The government has to constantly clarify the messages circulating in the society, and it is absolutely impossible to do it.” This response is consistent with the government’s constant claim that “fake news is very harmful to society, so we need to clarify it quickly.” It’s obvious In and out.
Extended reading: Policy address ︱ Is the salary pursuit of district councilors fake news? Carrie Lam: I don't even know that the rumors come from Biandu
After the news of the government's DQ district councillors' salary pursuit came out, a large number of democratic district councillors resigned, including the chairman of the Democratic Party Luo Jianxi.
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Luo Jianxi: Deliberately letting favorable news flow
"In fact, the government is selectively targeting some rumors that are unfavorable to them, but deliberately allows some rumors that it knows to be false and beneficial to them to ferment without clarifying." The Democratic Party chairman who resigned as a Southern District Councillor in July this year Luo Jianxi summarized this to reporters.
He also mentioned on a radio program earlier that the rumors of salary pursuit have a great impact. If they are false, they should be clarified quickly. However, the government deliberately allows these rumors to circulate and create "uncertainty", making it impossible for district board members to concentrate on their work. This is the main reason leading to the resignation of many district councilors.
Law Kin-hee also questioned whether the information provided by the government is equivalent to "correct information". First of all, it is already a question. From the government's handling of the oaths of district councilors and the rumors of salary demands, people are even more suspicious of the motives behind it: "The government says to " "Fighting fake news", this sentence itself may be a "fake news"."
Extended reading: Dismantling the bureau︱ District Council’s "extra-spicy" plan leads to the resignation of the tide government, "soldiers without blood" succeeded in driving the enemy?
Case 2: Attack on "Blue Camp" on July 21 and accuse Lin Zhuoting as the "culprit"
Another extremely controversial case is the origin of the Yuen Long 7.21 attack.
On the evening of July 21 the previous year, a large number of people in white assaulted citizens inside and outside the Yuen Long West Rail Station. The police only arrived 39 minutes after receiving the report. The most controversial incident so far has been the legislative amendment incident.
Afterwards, in the "Deep Blue" camp, there was a saying that the origin of the incident was that the former Democratic Party legislator Lin Cheuk-ting led the demonstrators into Yuen Long to make trouble, and the white-clothed people were "Yuen Long residents defending their homes."
He Junyao, a member of the Legislative Council, has often repeated this statement in live broadcasts on his social networks and in his daily speeches.
Judge's verdict: The defendant accused Lin Zhuoting of taking the lead in trouble
However, if you look carefully, there is no evidence for Lin's claim of "leading people to do things."
Checking multiple live media footages, closed-circuit television footages that have been made public, and eyewitness recollections, there was no black-clad demonstration in Yuen Long before the incident.
Among them, in a sentence of a person in white in July this year, the trial judge Ye Zuowen stated that the defendant Huang Yingjie accused Lin Cheuk Ting of taking the lead in causing trouble and beating people in Yuen Long Station. However, after examining the evidence, Lin was only calming the people inside the gate after he arrived at the scene. The defendant did not witness Lin Zhuoting's behavior but immediately conclusively charged the other party with no basis.
Lin Zhuoting’s specific role on the night of 7.21 still needs to be verified by the court. However, based on the evidence currently exposed to the public, it seems that Lin is called the "culprit" of the incident. This seems to lack basis. The government currently refuses to comment on the 7.21 incident on the grounds of judicial procedures. .
Extended reading: The officer in the Yuen Long 721 attack reprimanded the people in white for collective lynching, causing the citizens to panic and must be sentenced to deterrent penalties
The Police Commissioner Reports Misuse of Fake Images
Regarding the 7.21 incident, the "Blue Camp" not only accused Lin Cheuk Ting, but also claimed that someone had called in the discussion area to join Yuen Long to engage in "recovery operations" and "to win Yuen Long and win the world."
However, Fu Jinghua, Associate Professor of the News and Media Research Center of the University of Hong Kong, used his social media database to search for the sources of the "Recover Yuen Long" and "Recover Yuen Long, Win the World" and found that the original first appeared in a paper called "Dust in the Wind." The mainland Weibo account.
Afterwards, related propaganda circulated in the discussion area, but the mainstream discussion content did not call for a demonstration in Yuen Long on July 21, but instead stopped netizens from demonstrating in Yuen Long and pointed out that the propaganda was a fake picture.
However, the IPCC’s anti-revision incident report directly quoted the “proposal” in the background description, stating that “since the evening of July 16, there have been messages on the Internet calling for people to participate in the Yuen Long event on July 21. "The public gathering to protest against the nuisance of the screening on July 16" does not match the real situation.
However, the government has so far failed to correct the misquoted information by the IPCC. Instead, Carrie Lam said at the press conference on the day the report was published that what the IPCC report stated was "the truth about Hong Kong."
Fu Jinghua mentioned to the reporter of "Hong Kong 01" that these inaccurate information may indeed affect the official historical conclusion of the incident.
Extended reading: IPCC report｜Zhang Xiu-hsien questioned the report misquoting 7.21 false pictures and the committee admitted that "no investigation was done"
7.21 Witness, Democratic Party member Zhuang Ronghui.
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Zhuang Ronghui: The official has the responsibility to re-examine the misinformation
7.21 Witness and Democratic Party member Zhuang Ronghui pointed out that both the citizens and the government may be misled by different false information. He also noticed that "In the past, there were some obviously false contents that were put in the (IPCC) report. middle".
Zhuang Ronghui pointed out that it is uncertain whether this will directly affect the official conclusion of the incident, but "Since the official has adopted and believed the information, and some people find that some of the "facts" used to cite the official conclusion are wrong, is the official also responsible? , To extract these wrong information and re-examine the whole thing?"
Lin Zhuoting, who was being returned due to the pro-democracy primary election case, said through a social network administrator that it would be inconvenient to be interviewed, but said that for any false accusations in the market, "fairness is in the hearts of the people."
(The DAB announced earlier that Ge Peifan will run for the Legislative Council Election Committee category. For the list of other candidates who have signed up, please click here)
Interview ︱ Deng Bingqiang: Young people are instigated by fake news to go to the streets and finally victimized. The government is difficult to establish a licensing system for reporters. Deng Bingqiang: Fake news has objective standards, ordinary people understand and criticize the news, mislead the news, and fight against fake news. Xiao Zeyi: Disrespect the rule of law and have no right to talk about freedom Instructed to clarify Xu Yingwei within two hours: Regarding foreign research and regulation of fake news, the policy address will not be commented on the district councilors' salary hunting. Is the district council's salary hunting fake news?
Carrie Lam: I don't even know that the rumors come from Biandu
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