Fake news prevention has once again become a hot issue. Unfortunately, people keep talking past each other and there is a complete lack of agreement.
The right way of dealing with the fake news problem is for those in favor of freedom of expression and those in favor of legislation to continue their dialogue in search of common ground.
However, an urgent task that should be immediately addressed is education in media literacy.
This is the fundamental solution to the problem, and it is a preventative measure that is less controversial and that can be implemented promptly.
Unfortunately, in the discussion about fake news, the Ministry of Education, the authority best placed to implement such policies, has remained completely silent, as if the issue were none of its business — an astonishing reaction.
The ministry organizes more than 100 teacher workshops every year, ranging from courses for principals and deans-to-be to on-the-job training. If it could integrate media literacy training into such workshops and included fake news prevention, participants would surely become the best teachers of media literacy and the deconstruction of fake news, having an immeasurable influence on countless students.
Surely cyberbullying, infringing on human rights, videos that violate people’s privacy and the distribution of fake news that causes social unrest are mostly the result of mistakes made by younger generations because they lack an understanding of the innate character of the Internet, as well as the related laws — in other words, a lack of media literacy.
Perhaps many students’ ignorance is not a result of their schools’ unwillingness to teach media literacy. Instead, it could be because teachers lack training and simply do not know how to teach media literacy.
As a consequence, fake news has more serious consequences in Taiwan than in many other nations. Is this not a problem that people in education should face head-on?
In addition to holding teachers’ workshops, the ministry could also implement a nationwide contest to submit teaching plans aimed at preventing fake news. There must be passionate educators who would like to help solve this problem.
Innovative teaching plans from teachers in the classroom could serve as instruction materials for others, while the ministry could use the contest to stress the importance of responding to fake news and inspiring people’s creativity on how to do so.
Moreover, as the authority overseeing the Lifelong Learning Act (終身學習法), the ministry can take advantage of education for adults — such as social education halls, libraries and community colleges — to push for media literacy and the deconstruction of fake news, to make adults who heavily rely on social media aware of the dangers of spreading false information and the possibility of breaking the law.
As all sides continue to debate how to prevent the spread of fake news, from both preschool and school to lifelong learning, should the ministry not take responsibility and push for media literacy education and fake news prevention, as no other ministry can do so without causing much controversy?
Only when people understand that they should never spread information that cannot be verified can we turn the saying that “gossips and rumors will only be stopped by the wise” into a reality.
Chen Ping-hung is a professor at National Taiwan Normal University’s Graduate Institute of Mass Communication.
Translated by Eddy Chang
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s hypersonic missile carried a simple message to the West over Ukraine: Back off, and if you do not, Russia reserves the right to hit US and British military facilities. Russia fired a new intermediate-range hypersonic ballistic missile known as “Oreshnik,” or Hazel Tree, at Ukraine on Thursday in what Putin said was a direct response to strikes on Russia by Ukrainian forces with US and British missiles. In a special statement from the Kremlin just after 8pm in Moscow that day, the Russian president said the war was escalating toward a global conflict, although he avoided any nuclear
Would China attack Taiwan during the American lame duck period? For months, there have been worries that Beijing would seek to take advantage of an American president slowed by age and a potentially chaotic transition to make a move on Taiwan. In the wake of an American election that ended without drama, that far-fetched scenario will likely prove purely hypothetical. But there is a crisis brewing elsewhere in Asia — one with which US president-elect Donald Trump may have to deal during his first days in office. Tensions between the Philippines and China in the South China Sea have been at
US President-elect Donald Trump has been declaring his personnel picks for his incoming Cabinet. Many are staunchly opposed to China. South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem, Trump’s nomination to be his next secretary of the US Department of Homeland Security, said that since 2000, China has had a long-term plan to destroy the US. US Representative Mike Waltz, nominated by Trump to be national security adviser, has stated that the US is engaged in a cold war with China, and has criticized Canada as being weak on Beijing. Even more vocal and unequivocal than these two Cabinet picks is Trump’s nomination for
An article written by Uber Eats Taiwan general manager Chai Lee (李佳穎) published in the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) on Tuesday said that Uber Eats promises to engage in negotiations to create a “win-win” situation. The article asserted that Uber Eats’ acquisition of Foodpanda would bring about better results for Taiwan. The National Delivery Industrial Union (NDIU), a trade union for food couriers in Taiwan, would like to express its doubts about and dissatisfaction with Lee’s article — if Uber Eats truly has a clear plan, why has this so-called plan not been presented at relevant
RSS