Some Like It Hoax : Lessons In Regulating Fake News In Malaysia
Hafidz Hakimi Haron · The European Proceedings of Social & Behavioural Sciences · 2021
The growth of digital technology promotes the positive impact of the usage of digital based media as the main source of information. Although the development has a significant positive impact to the digital economy, it is unfortunate that the online media has become a breeding ground for dissemination of false information. Worse, news from unverified sources has often been carelessly quoted by the mainstream press which shows a remarkably questionable practices and consequently shows possible regulatory gap in the enforcement of press ethical conduct. Yet, existing laws on dissemination of false information had often being criticized as draconian, anti-democratic, and viewed as the instrument of the state control over free speech. This sentiment later contributed to the abolishment of the Anti-Fake News Act 2018 - just a year after it was enacted. Nevertheless, controlling propagation of fake news has proven to be challenging to the authorities. The episodes of the spread of fake news in regard to the Covid-19 pandemic in Malaysia had stretched the authorities to choose a stricter offence under the Penal Code rather than the usual anti-fake news legislations such as the Printing Presses and Publication Act 1984 and the Communications and Multimedia Act 1998. Thus, the primary objective of this paper is to revisit the development of fake news regulatory mechanism in Malaysia, and to recommend any possible improvement to curb it in the future. The paper adopts the method of textual analysis of the legislation as well as semi-structured interviews.