Journalists association and Facebook pair to go after fake news

The spokesperson of IOJ said the organisation supports advertisement and campaign launched by Facebook on newspapers to highlight the issue of fabricated news and increasingly alert the public.

He said IOJ is currently discussing with Facebook to explore whether both can launch some form of measures to handle fake news.

“Once we come to a conclusion we will be announcing some of the measures in the next few months.”

IOJ and Facebook placed a full page advertisement in Sin Chew Daily on Aug  24 offering ten ways to identify fake news and information such as paying attention to the headline, check the website address, check on the reliability of the source, observe the unusual format, identify whether the photographs or visuals are genuine, check the date of incident, verify source of evidence, check other news reports and judge the quality of news. Read and think about the news, only share news with friends after making sure that the news is genuine and reference is available.

On April 12, Facebook, through social media platform, proposes to offer tips to spot fake news for users to verify information in a bid to stop the widespread of untrue news.