Fake news, false news disguised as touching, humane stories

The strong development of information technology has been and is an opportunity for the media to spread, which is one of the conditions for expanding democracy. However, many organizations and individuals have taken advantage of this issue to spread false information, fabricate details about incidents in order to "attract views", "attract likes", and steer public opinion, with the ultimate goal of defrauding, appropriating property; making money from social networks, and even opposing the Party and the State.

Fake news, false news disguised as touching, humane stories Social network users need to be vigilant against fake information in cyberspace.

Remember during the COVID-19 pandemic, the story of a doctor named Tran Khoa after being posted on social media with the content of the image of this doctor removing his mother's ventilator to give the ventilator, life to the pregnant woman in the bed next to him. After being posted, it attracted millions of "likes", shares, and comments. However, after verifying the incident, the security agency concluded that this was fake information and not true in Vietnam. But many comments had the opinion that this was a humane story, it was okay to spread it. However, the nature of the person who posted this story was not for a humane purpose but to take advantage of the story to attract the community, the kindness of people to commit fraud, property appropriation, and those who had compassion were misplaced, helping the bad guys. More dangerously, posting this story had a negative impact on society, causing panic among the people and a pessimistic view of the epidemic situation in Ho Chi Minh City.

Or in Hanoi, a story appeared that spread rapidly on Facebook. The writer claimed to be an insider and shared that in the afternoon, after finishing dinner, he saw a young man dressed in rags, with a weak and crooked figure, staggering in front of the door. The young man asked the homeowner in a low voice: "Do you have any leftover rice or soup for me to eat? I'm starving to death." When the homeowner asked, the boy said that he was 18 years old, from Thanh Hoa, working as a construction worker with his 21-year-old brother. They both rented a room and since Hanoi started social distancing, it's been a week but they haven't had anything to eat. The homeowner saw that and immediately made instant noodles for the two young men and didn't forget to give them a few more packs for the road. As soon as the story was posted with a picture of the two young men eating instant noodles (the picture had their faces covered), thousands of shares and comments expressed sympathy.

During the pandemic, there are actually many stories of sympathy that are also full of humanity. The image of beggars is not rare, but the situation of two young men going into a house to beg for "leftover rice and soup" is another story. And the truth was revealed when the narrator concluded at the end: "The Prime Minister said "No one is left behind", but right in the middle of the capital, people went a whole week without anything to eat". From there, he criticized the Government, saying that people should not trust the Government or the authorities!

The trick of bad elements is to spread images and stories that sound like "humanity in distress", thereby appealing to people's compassion, pity, and sadness during the pandemic. However, this is just a "blindfold" trick because the more tragic and heartbreaking the fabricated stories are, the more they use human tears to sow hatred against the government. From there, bad forces will take advantage of these tragic stories and images to defame the leadership of the Party and the State.

According to experts at the Vietnam Fake News Handling Center (VAFC), fake news is released in many different forms, which can be for profit but can also be spread widely to "attract views" and "attract likes" on social networks. Through monitoring and screening, VAFC classifies the types of fake news that appear into information groups including: Fake news about healthcare, medical products related to human health; fake news about policies and laws; economics, finance; natural disasters, epidemics; national security, social order and safety; fake accounts; scam links and other areas.

Depending on the level, VAFC divides fake news into two levels, including untrue information, fabricated news, slanderous news and information that is partly true but not completely accurate, distorted news, and unfounded news that is spread in society and on cyberspace. Accordingly, unlike the notion of some people that fake news only has negative content, there is currently a trend of fake news that also has positive, humane content and is also being widely disseminated and spread.

According to the authorities, not outside the general trend of the world, social networks in Vietnam are "fertile ground" for fake news to develop. And many opinions feel concerned when many fake news in Vietnam are quite simple but still deceive many people, especially now on social networking sites, there is still a continuous appearance of very unreasonable information but many people still exclaim, angry, happy very easily and even call friends to exchange.

In fact, in the context of an increasingly “flat” world, it is undeniable that social networks have the benefits, but it is also impossible to rule out many risks that have, are, and will remain hidden on social networks. The nature of social networks is not bad, whether they are bad or not depends on how we are using them. From the information mentioned above, it can be seen that the solution to propagate, educate awareness and skills so that each citizen can become a wise social network user, with “resistance” and the ability to distinguish official information from fake, fabricated information is a basic and important solution. Therefore, do not rush to share, comment, or spread unverified images or information, especially information or images that touch on people's pain, loss, sadness, or compassion, because "hidden in the dark" there are always bad guys using the trick of spreading fake news to attack people's hearts and tears in order to sow insecurity and incite sabotage against the country.

Article and photos: Le Phuong

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