Battling disinformation is about trust as much as truth. That’s why the Online Falsehoods Bill needs to be amended.

By CHERIAN GEORGE

April 8, 2019

Since the tabling of the proposed online falsehoods legislation a week ago, my criticisms of the Bill have been widely quoted in mainstream and social media. This isn’t because I’m its biggest opponent but because I’ve chosen to taken it seriously enough to study it — while many other Singaporeans who feel more negatively probably think it’s pointless to give it the time.

By default rather than design, therefore, my opinions have attained a curious prominence in the current debate. This has had unfortunate results. Junior law minister Edwin Tong’s responses last Wednesday caricatured my inputs, making it seem as if I favour the circulation of untruths. One of his Facebook followers, who clearly had not read what I’d actually written, took Tong’s bait and challenged me: “Does George Cherian feel that public interest and safeguarding our safe, secure and harmonious way of life are not important? The majority of Singaporeans surely do.”

Before I disengage from this debate, therefore, I should make it clear that I believe the challenge of dealing with industrial-strength disinformation campaigns is a serious one. And because it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing well. (This should be obvious from my Select Committee contributions and other writings as well as last week’s blogs.)

For a complete list of my writings on this topic, please visit my home page.

Rather than dive into chapter and verse, as my previous commentaries on the Bill have done, I’d like here to take a step back and look at the big picture.

Post-truth world is a crisis of trust

The Bill, I sense, is based on a misappraisal of the problem. The government is attempting to deal with the disinformation threat as if this was a battle over truth. That is a major part of it, of course. But it is also a war for trust. Our national strategies against the enemies of truth will fail — and even backfire and make things worse — if these responses breed cynicism and erode trust.

Let me explain.

The circulation of extremely harmful untruths is not what’s new in the current global crisis.

More than half a century ago, the tobacco industry successfully delayed regulation for decades by spreading the lie that there wasn’t enough medical evidence to act on. They are still at it, resulting in more than 7 million deaths a year. The single most destabilising geopolitical act this century — the US conquest of Iraq — was based on the Bush administration’s lies 17 years ago about Saddam Hussein’s non-existent weapons of mass destruction. The disinformation campaign that threatens to decimate our species, by climate change deniers supported by the energy industry, has been operating for decades, resulting in policy positions that are at least 20 years behind the scientific consensus.

So, if the advantage has recently shifted in favour of disinformation merchants, it is only partly due to how the internet allows them to bypass traditional media gatekeepers. Let’s not over-romanticise governments and professional news media as guardians of truth. Where were they when big tobacco, big energy and George Bush were selling their lies? None of the disinformation industry’s greatest hits of the last 100 years can be blamed on social media.

No, what is really new is the erosion of the authority of establishment institutions — governments, centrist political parties, universities, the press — even when they are trying to act responsibly. This trend is linked to the rise of anti-establishment populism around the world. There is a seething resentment against the System that makes alarming numbers of people want to believe the false promises and hate speech of opportunistic politicians and intolerant identity-based movements. Only when we understand this demand side of the equation will we be able to come up with smart supply-side interventions against online disinformation.

Clumsy regulation can backfire

In my Select Committee submission and elsewhere, I’ve pointed out how hate propagandists turn the tables on regulators, spinning news about government interventions to make themselves look like the victims. A regulator thinks it’s scoring a goal for truth. In fact, it may be helping the hate merchants sell the lie that the whole game is rigged against them and their base.

More worryingly, by playing the victim, these malevolent players gain sympathy from the more reasonable citizens in the middle ground, who come to believe that their legitimate grievances — about overly liberal immigration policy, for example — are being suppressed by those in power.

This is why it is so important that any proposed speech regulation must be bulletproof against accusations that it’s shoring up the status quo and repressing necessary change.

Too strong or too weak? Yes.

The issue is not as simple as deciding whether the Bill is too strong or too weak. In some respects, I’m disappointed that the Bill doesn’t go far enough.

In particular, governments around the world should be far stricter with the public relations and advertising industries. Over the last couple of years, the Bell Pottinger scandal and academic research has told us quite a bit about how some players in this sector have been as corrupt as Facebook (and that’s saying a lot) in facilitating disinformation. It amazes me how little policy scrutiny has been paid to the industry, including in Singapore — where the issue barely figured in weeks of Select Committee hearings.

I’m glad the Bill at least lays the ground for a code of practice that would help rein in the sector. But on the whole — relative to the kind of tough regulation that they actually deserve — this global industry must be (quietly) laughing its way to the bank, extremely relieved that despite its talent for drawing attention, it has somehow stayed beneath the radar.

So, if I criticise other aspects of the Bill for being too aggressive, it is not because I’m ideologically opposed to regulating speech. It is mainly because these provisions will erode the kind of capital that we most lack for communication in the public interest during these challenging times — not truth, but trust.

No need to close every loophole

The Bill’s drafters seem have been operating on the assumption that the way to counter slippery, devious disinformation merchants is to anticipate and close every loophole. Hence, the Bill’s sweeping language, which gives an extraordinary degree of discretion and flexibility to the executive branch.

But once we understand that the game is about trust as much as it is about truth, then we realise that this “pao ka liao”, cover-everything approach is counterproductive. It can play into the hands of those trying to push the narrative that the game is rigged.

We’re not dealing here with a threat like sarin gas, which merits a zero tolerance regulatory regime. That’s not how disinformation works. Humans have survived and will continue to survive with quite a lot of myths and fabrications surrounding us. What matters is being able and willing to turn to superior sources of information and ideas when we need them. Letting some harmful untruths circulate is preferable to actions that would weaken our resilience, including actions by our elected representatives that may undermine their own credibility.

Instead of trying to close every loophole, therefore, the Bill must ensure that the process of correction and take-down is beyond reproach. This means its application must be subject to thorough checks and balances, even at the expense of fast and flexible action every time the government wants to intervene. The language of the law should permit these powers to be used only when independent reviewers are satisfied that the situation merits it.

Only then can we build and preserve the moral authority of a democratic state that is trying to act in the public interest. Yes, disinformation is a global crisis. But the world’s capacity to discover, process, and circulate truths is stronger than it has ever been. We are in a battle for trust, as much as for truth, and we won’t win it if those on the side of right are not firm in our principles and scrupulous in our methods.

My earlier pieces on the Bill

April 2: Proposed online falsehoods law will help the government deal with dangers, but will it also make the government more dangerous?

April 3: How would the Online Falsehoods Act affect journalism? This test case could give an answer.

April 5: Give judges more leeway under fake news laws.

April 6: Online Falsehoods Bill: Language of the law matters.