THE mushrooming of “fake news” in Malaysia has drained the resources of human rights groups and news organisations, who have to spend energy fighting back “malicious lies”, said activists and journalists.

The online realm has now been swamped with misleading stories or rumours disguised as factual stories, a forum organised by Empower in Petaling Jaya was told today.

“A lot of the stories are either somewhat untrue or outright lies,” Rizal Rozhan, Empower advocacy officer told a forum, entitled ‘The buzz in social media: Fake news, propaganda or stigma?’

“Some civil groups have only two or three people, so pushing back fake news has taken so much time and so much resources,” he said.

“The people producing fake news have so many people, and so much time to do this.”

“It’s really taking a toll on these small organisations in terms of money and the mental health of those affected,” he added.

Rizal said the trend is “a classic case of distracting groups from doing their actual jobs.”

“Instead of promoting human rights, they’re reduced to promoting the fact that they’re actually doing good work.

“Some groups can no longer work even within their own communities due to the threats they’re getting, which is a sad reality at the moment.”

Furthermore, Rizal said, the online realm will be a battlefield for public opinions in the coming elections.

“The key words to watch out for is ‘liberalism’ and ‘pluralism’. Back in the day, the word liberalism is something good, something to aspire to. Now, the people who talk about it are turned into some kind of walking demons.”

“There seems to be a play to vilify one group of people. The elections is going to be about which party is going to look the most pious. We will go back to religious and race politics,” he said.

Nik Elin Nik Rashid, a lawyer and an activist, said she had received death threats over her feminist opinions or for not wearing a tudung.

“There have been dangerous comments inciting violence against me. My words become maliciously manipulated. I don’t know why, but it may be due to ignorance and the low mentality of people who cannot see right from wrong… people love this,” she said.

Elin said online news have taken her words out of context or reported her as saying something else: “Sometimes the heading has nothing to do with the story.”

According to the 2017 World Press Freedom Index by Reporters Sans Frontiers (RSF), Malaysia moved up two slots and landed on 144th place between its neighbours Singapore (151) and Thailand (142).

RSF reported that the Official Secrets Act and the Sedition Act are the main reasons for the comparatively poor performance of Malaysia concerning press freedom.

“Several proposed amendments would reinforce the already draconian Official Secrets Act and Communications and Multimedia Act, but the Sedition Act continues to be the biggest threat to journalists,” RSF said. – December 17, 2017.