Disinformation, Fake News, and Misinformation in the Asia-​Pacific Region

Part 1 - Lead Organizer

Contact Person

Eun Chang Choi

Organization / Affiliation (Please state "Individual" if appropriate)

GP3Korea

Designation

Director

Gender

Male

Economy of Residence

South Korea

Primary Stakeholder Group

Academia

Part 2 - Session Proposal

Your proposal is for

Capacity Building Day (Prep Day)

Session Title

Disinformation, Fake News, and Misinformation in the Asia-​Pacific Region

Track

Trust

Session Format

Tutorial

Where do you plan to organize your session?

Virtual / online

Specific Issues for Discussion

Several Asian countries rely heavily on social media for news information or rumors, making them particularly vulnerable to the spread of fake news and disinformation. Asian countries, however, seems like have not embarked on the battle against disinformation and misinformation. Some countries feel the need of reasonable restrictions for regulation of social media to prevent the spread of fake news which several governments have been mulling or have acted on over the past few weeks and months. India's top constitutional court restrained a High Court from passing final orders on a public interest litigation asking for interlinking of citizens’ social media profiles with their national identity number database for authentication. The session will illustrate the examples of Myanmar, Indonesia, and Malaysia, countries in the region have different experiences concerning disinformation campaigns and current move for regulations . Then will propse possible solutions about how to social media platforms take accountability and the value of free speech.

Describe the Relevance of Your Session to APrIGF

The problem of the disinformation, fake News, and misinformation in tandem with media manipulations is deeply linked to the free speech online and democratization in particular in emerging economies. This tutorial session is designed to give a picture of the mechanism and motivations of producing disinformation, fake news, and misinformation, so that they realize the role of ownership, participation and the value of transparency. It will be a educational session especially for young attendee of the APrIGF 2021 and it will facilitate discussion about the role of social media platform, and technologies that could provide platforms for misinformation and misdirection.

Methodology / Agenda

The session is a Tutorial where any participants and fellow are invited to discuss about the problem of disinformation and fake news with regards to their own experience. The session will be divided into thee main sub-sections which are (1) What are examples of disinformation in several country/region within three years ? (2) What are the features of the disinformation phenomenon in context of the dynamic changes of the political landscape in emerging democratic economies. (3) The feasible solutions for the problem of disinformation and fake news : Seeking the role of social media platform's filtering work, or media lateracy education ( CapacityBuilding) or the role of civie media with civic engagement etc. The tutorial session would have (1) 40 mins of presentation (2) 30 mins of free discussion and Q&A. (each participant will have the floor for 4 mins ) The questions will be openly discussed in the context of the Internet governance.

Please provide 3 subject matter tags that best describe your session.

#disinformation, #fake news, #CapacityBuilding

Moderators & Speakers Info (Please complete where possible)

Please explain the rationale for choosing each of the above contributors to the session.

The speaker of the tutorial session is an author of the book The Archaeology of Disinformation: How Fake News/Propaganda Manipulated Public Opinion from Ancient Rome to Social Media , Publisher 東亞細亞(2020). Mr Choi has a good insight and expertise of the issues of Disinformation, Fake News, and Misinformation in the Asia-​Pacific Region as well as global politics perspective. Eun Chang Choi https://eunchangchoi.github.io/