The Malaysiakini report on the Opposition Leader’s Office stating that the “PN meet Agong with 118 SDs” is fake news has highlighted the political scams on the social media in Malaysia with lies, falsehoods fake news and all forms of misinformation and disinformation.
I am reminded of a recent case in Sydney where the police arrested a man and charged him for his role in an alleged massive phising scam that bombarded Aussies with 17 million fraudulent texts pretending to be from Australia Post or Linkt.
During their search of the man’s home in Sydney, police located two subscriber identity module (SIM) boxes, SIM cards, and electronics which were consistent with the man running a fraudulent text message scam.
The problem of fake news on the social media is not peculiar to Malaysia but is a world-wide problem as a result of the advent of the Information Age and the Internet.
But while other countries are afflicted by social media scams involving commerce, charity, romance, ecommerce or job offers, Malaysia is pioneering social media scams in the political arena polarising race and religious relations in plural Malaysia.
Malaysia can play a leading role in the world in the clean-up of the social media on the political front by taking strong action against fake news and hate speech, especially on the toppling of the elected Anwar Ibrahim government by “backdoor” means.