With the rampant spread of the Wuhan virus, it’s easy to believe everything you see online about it.
According to the Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act (POFMA) Office, a few correction directions have been issued over false claims related to the Wuhan coronavirus in Singapore.
Apparently, a website called AB-TC City News posted an article claiming that five Singaporeans were infected by the virus without having travelled to China.
Uhh… I tried Googling that site and after looking at it, it seems that they post very sporadically, with their homepage even displaying an article from 2010.
Another news site called States Times Review claimed that Singapore had run out of face masks.
The Government took this chance to clarify on its fact-checking website Factually that the claims are not true. They even confirmed that there has been no local transmission of the coronavirus so far, with all those infected being Chinese nationals, and that Singapore has not run out of masks.
“Five S’poreans Have Contracted The Virus Without Going To China”
In order to ensure that those who have seen the news are informed about them being fake, Minister for Health Gan Kim Yong gave instructions to the POFMA Office to issue correction directions against AB-TC City News, lawyer Lim Tean as well as a Facebook page “Say No to PAP” for sharing the article on Facebook.
They are then required to carry a correction notice alongside the article even though Mr Lim and the “Say No to PAP” page have both taken down their Facebook posts.
They have since done this as of this morning.
“Singapore Has Run Out Of Masks”
Minister for Trade and Industry Chan Chun Sing also gave instructions to the POFMA Office to issue a correction direction to 32-year-old Mr Alex Tan, who runs the States Times Review website and Facebook page, for claiming that Singapore no longer has any more face masks.
According to the Factually article, the States Time Review “said on its Facebook page that Senior Minister of State, Ministry of Health and Ministry of Transport Dr Lam Pin Min confirmed that Singapore had run out of face masks, and insinuated that Dr Lam Pin Min blaming Singaporeans for ‘insensible and irresponsible’ use of surgical masks.”
Apparently, “Mr Tan also posted that Singapore had run out of masks since last Sunday, less than three days after the first confirmed case.”
Examples were then cited on the Factually website to prove that Singapore had not run out of masks, like the fact that Dr Lam was “clearly pictured in a warehouse which showed part of the Government stockpile of surgical masks”, and that Mr Chan was heard saying in a press conference that the Singapore Armed Forces will be packing more than 5.2 million surgical masks for distribution to households.
Mr Tan also had to put up a correction notice on his Facebook page other than just putting it on his website so that “users who see the falsehood on a platform also see the correction notice on that platform”.
POFMA
POFMA came into effect in October 2019 and a few Internet intermediaries were temporarily exempted from having to comply with the correction direction requirements.
According to the authorities yesterday, POFMA’s temporary exemptions have been lifted. This means that online platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Google Search, Baidu and HardwareZone are no longer going to be exempted from having to comply with the general correction directions under POFMA. This is also in light of the “evolving situation with the Wuhan coronavirus”, hence they believe that it is necessary to curb the spread of fake news and only inform the public of factually accurate ones.
