DAVAO CITY – The Philippine Information Agency (PIA) is exploring possibilities of developing a Philippine-based application that can be utilized to help fast check “fake news”.
“Primarily yun ang ating dapat gawin na bago magshare kailangan meron tayong magamit na tool na tutulungan tayo kung medyo alanganin and information (Primarily that is what we need to do before sharing. We need to have a tool that will help us (determine) if the information is doubtful),” Harold Clavite, PIA director general, said.
Clavite said unfortunately there was not enough application in the Philippines that would help Filipinos, unlike in the US where there was such an app.
He said there were also several applications in the international market that were available but a Philippine-based app customized for the Filipinos was needed. He stressed there were certain ways that would help people identify fake news from the real ones: check the source, identify the source, teach people to see if URL is legit, set parameters and provide information to people as to how to recognize credible and non-credible sources.
Clavite said based on the monitoring done by the PIA fake news affected a lot of communities.
“We are at a point right now where if you talk to an ordinary Filipino if that person is able to recognize real news from fake news and it is very difficult to identify because it is so easy to create a platform and blog or website and people can just write anything they want. We have to wake ourselves up from this nightmare as it has affected a lot of communities not only in the political arena,” he said.
Clavite said government agencies nowadays were taking the lead in tackling the said topic and that sooner or later the government would be able to set up measures to counter and prevent fake news.
At the same time while it is being done by the government, it is important for people to understand how serious the problem is. People should realize that forwarding of message without verifying contributed to the spread of wrong information, he said.
Stopping the proliferation of fake news is among the goals of the first National Information Convention at SMX Convention Center here slated on February 19 to 21.
Clavite said PIA had entered into a lot of partnerships with relevant offices of the government with the strong support of Presidential Communications Operations Office (PCOO).
“This is going to be a big event that will gather around a thousand government information officers, media, private sector, academes – this is our way of showing the country and the world that the government is doing its best to make sure that the Filipino public will be informed and this is our way of letting people know that the PCOO and all its attach agencies is very serious in making sure that the fake news will be stopped and wrong information is not being disseminated to the public,” he said.
The three day convention will tackle communicating government policies, public diplomacy in government communication, role of information officers in the government, citizen journalism; and sessions on freedom of information, building communication networks, social marketing, media security, knowledge management, and grassroots communication.
“When it comes to information dissemination everyone has the responsibility. Social media has given us a lot of power in a matter of seconds we are able to transmit information but we fail to realize that with that great power comes with great responsibility also,” he said.
He said lack of education on technology had become the primary source of the proliferation of wrong information.
PIA is eyeing to address the different sectors starting with the youth and students through the Department of Education and Commission on higher Education. (Maya Padillo/PNA)
