POLITICAL parties have been warned to communicate with voters clearly and honestly as fake news and fake profiles are expected to intensify during the campaign period.
National Federation Party (NFP) leader Professor Biman Prasad said some political players are taking advantage of online platforms to spread misinformation about political parties and public figures.
“Fake news, fake profiles, these things are very common,” Prof Prasad said.
“But that’s the nature of political social media environment.”
Prof Prasad said political parties must have the ability and resources to deal with what he described as “social media fakery”, warning that it would continue and become “much nastier” during the campaign period. “As far as NFP is concerned, we believe that a large majority of our people, even though they have access to social media, are sensible people.” He said political party leaders had a responsibility to avoid feeding the problem and to deal with voters openly.
Prof Prasad said some online actors were based outside Fiji and had their own political or personal agendas.
He also raised concern that some people in institutions and government departments responded to bloggers and fake profiles, saying this gave them relevance and encouraged them to continue.
“And that is a bit of a tragedy, but that is something that we should avoid because these people have their own political, own personal agenda in advancing some of those fake news.”
Prof Prasad said some people took documents and created stories around them because readers on social media often did not have the full details.
He said these allowed insinuations to be pushed online and, in some cases, believed by a small minority of people in institutions and government.
He said this gave those behind fake profiles an incentive to continue spreading “fake, false, doctored disinformation”.
