The controversy over the amendment of the Fugitive Offenders Ordinance in Hong Kong society has not subsided. The demonstrators continued to gather in the streets. More demonstrators had earlier broken into the Legislative Council building. But in addition to street protests, social networks are also staged a battle between true and false news, with the goal of attracting more attention.

Traditional and online media have sent readers information about demonstrations through the platforms of WhatsApp and Facebook over the past few days, but in addition to these reports, there are some pictures, short films and texts that have been deleted, which are misleading or even completely published. False news, robbing the readers of the eye.

Observers who have analyzed Hong Kong news for many years have noticed that these "fake news" are news published by social networking websites that do not belong to any media. In addition, many netizens have not distinguished whether the information is true or not, and the result is a large number of untrue news. The amplitude spread, "the destruction is amazing."
TV station fake
Hong Kong writer Wang Dishi had experienced the power of such "fake news" in person.

She had lunch with friends and left by subway. She just saw two uncles on the phone watching a clip on the mobile phone about the June 21 protesters surrounding the Hong Kong police headquarters. The narration of this episode has been deleted and changed to include the words "I feel very unfortunate, why a new generation of people in Hong Kong might be like this", and the screen still shows the emblem of cable news.

Wired news later issued a statement criticizing the practice of arbitrarily accessing its news clips, causing viewers to mistakenly believe that it was the TV station's report.

The two uncles did not know that the footage had been deleted. While watching, they criticized the demonstrators surrounding the police headquarters and blocked the ambulance personnel from entering the police headquarters building, describing the demonstrators’ actions as “barbaric”.

When Wang Dishi accepted the BBC Chinese interview, she said that she estimated that the two uncles were reasonable people and wanted to explain to the other party that the clip was a "fake news", not a report of cable news. "He was shocked at the time and said to me: ‘No, the clip has the mark of cable news, how can it be fake?’”

One of the uncles said that the piece of news that was deleted was sent to him by a friend who had known him for many years. The other party could not lie to him.
She then opened the social networking page of Cable News and showed the official clarification statement. The uncle did not make a fuss against her, but she was shocked to estimate that the news piece was a false report. Wang Dishi searched for other news media-related reports on his mobile phone. The other party watched it with great concentration and did not speak.

Wang Dishi said that she had not communicated with the other party for the rest of the journey, but it was estimated from the reaction of the other party that he "should not be as confident as before, completely trusting what others sent to his mobile phone."

Truth of truth
Last year in Taiwan, in order to crack down on false news, a local engineer, Xu Wei, launched a program called “Jade Jade”. Users can invite this program to join the communication software group, and then it will detect the messages in the group. Whether there is a false message or not, the evaluation result is automatically issued.

At present, there is no computer program in Hong Kong that is similar to "Jade". However, in recent years, some channels for verifying news have appeared in social networks and communication software. In the environment of information explosion, it is really necessary to try to verify various messages.

One of the cases came from a special page called "Checking the Media". The Hong Kong network circulated a screenshot of the now news station on Monday (July 1). The content was a dialogue between the Pan-Democratic Legislative Council member Mao Mengjing and the attacking Legislative Council demonstrators. The subtitles showed that Mao Mengjing persuaded the other party if they really rushed into the legislation. The building will be regarded as a riot, and the highest can be sentenced to ten years in prison. The other party’s response has already anticipated this consequence. It is said that three people had died in the dispute during the amendments.
However, after the news station issued a statement, the subtitles in the screenshots were deleted. When the demonstrators responded to Mao Mengjing, they actually said that they were “not worthy of the problem”, but Mao Mengjing’s teammates betrayed them.

This misleading message is not only issued by one of the parties to the dispute. The Hong Kong demonstrators re-enclosed the police headquarters on June 26, after which an illustration was circulated on the Internet that a police officer pretending to be a demonstrator incited others to attack the police headquarters and tried to force the opening of the police headquarters with a hoe. However, after "seeking the media" to look at the relevant news segments of the media, he found that he did not bring the gimmicks and did not try to open the gate.

The Hong Kong Government has taken the initiative to clarify some rumors. For example, on Tuesday (July 2), the Hong Kong online media "852 Post" once published a video stating that Lin Zhengyue hoped to dispatch the People's Liberation Army to quell the demonstration. The Government Information Office issued a statement that night, describing the report as "inaccurate". The Chief Executive did not ask the PLA to assist in handling the demonstration.

In addition, the Internet once reported that the Hong Kong police had arrested some people in a public housing estate. It was suspected that it was related to demonstrations in the past few days. However, the Pan-Democratic Legislative Council Member Nuo Xuan attended the scene and confirmed that the information was wrong. The police went to the scene only to deal with it. A case unrelated to the demonstration.

When interviewed by the BBC Chinese interview, the page manager of the “Checking Media” pointed out that they observed that many social networking sites had “dissponsibly spread rumors” during the “Fugitive Offenders Regulations” dispute, and issued many of them in line with their political ideas. Message.

The "Qibu Media" administrator also believes that the performance of smart phones will increase, so that more people can take photos or clips, and then make a story by picture or video content, regardless of whether the descriptions are accurate or not. "The reason for a lot of fake news or misleading messages."
Reader's choice
Chen Liang, an associate professor in the Department of Sociology and Social Policy at Lingnan University in Hong Kong, pointed out that the news materials consumed by the general readers are no longer limited to text reports, but more and more multimedia reports.

When she accepted the BBC Chinese interview, she pointed out that the characteristics of these multimedia reports are that the reader does not need to read every word. It may have a very attractive photo or an exaggerated expression. It seems that it is easy to be preconceived. feel. "This is different from reading a social comment. You have to look at the editorial from the beginning to the end, and then slowly organize it in your mind. What is going on?

Li Lifeng, dean of the School of Journalism and Communication at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, also said in a local media report that it is normal for a social movement to have such a false message, most likely because some people or groups want to promote their position.

Chen Wei believes that to discern the authenticity of a news, the most basic approach is to first understand the background of the media, and try to look at reports from different media. It should not only look at the media belonging to the same camp.

Today's social networks are popular. Many times, when readers “like” the information that suits their position, these social networking sites will start to display only content with similar positions, so that they can only touch content that is consistent with their own position and cannot see the other party. The idea that this phenomenon is often referred to as living in its own "stratosphere."
Chen Wei believes that if you want to know more about the cause and effect of the matter and the complexity, readers "must force themselves to jump out of the 'stratosphere', try to see things that will make them uncomfortable, and then judge by themselves."

"Of course this is a very high requirement. After all, not everyone has so much time, so today's situation is there."
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