Online Falsehoods Should be Criminalised – Prof Rohan Gunaratna-By Vindya Amaranayake
Source:Ceylontoday
Eighteenth-century Irish author and satirist Jonathan Swift quite eloquently penned these words: “Falsehood flies, and truth comes limping after it, so that when men come to be undeceived, it is too late; the jest is over, and the tale hath had its effect.” Centuries later, their meaning is even more resonant with the times that we live in – the age of fake news.
Dr. Rohan Gunaratna, Honorary Professor at the Sir John Kotalawala Defence University and Senior Advisor to its Department of Defence and Strategic Studies, who has interviewed both the LTTE and Islamic State leaders and members, elaborates why Sri Lanka should invest in a campaign to formally and informally educate Sri Lankans on the detrimental impact of fake news, while building a robust and an up-to-date legal and policy framework to counter online falsehoods.
Following are excerpts of an interview:
Why is the growing phenomenon of fake news detrimental to national security and national interest?
A: Fake news compromises public safety, peace and good order. Fake news is an impediment to any government building a socially harmonious, politically stable and an economically-prosperous nation.
During the Aluthgama, Digana and Minuwangoda riots, fake news set Sri Lankans against Sri Lankans. Online falsehoods drove marauding mobs to attack innocent Sri Lankans.
Similarly, during the elections, both in 2015 and 2019, fake news distorted and unduly influenced the voters. There was foreign interference in the 2015 election. As we are now emerging as a key geopolitical and strategic hub, Sri Lanka should address this lacuna in our security landscape.
Unless online falsehoods and manipulation is addressed with an iron fist, the gaps and loopholes will be exploited by interested parties to damage Sri Lanka.
How important it is to introduce laws / mechanisms to counter the spread of fake news where digital and social media can disseminate unverified news in an instant, with no accountability?
A: Online falsehoods and manipulation should be criminalised. It is not only those who deliberately manufacture fake news but those who knowingly disseminate fake news should be investigated, and if found guilty, prosecuted. The executives of Media organisations that wilfully host fake news should also be held accountable.
Sri Lanka should also invest in a campaign to formally and informally educate Sri Lankans on the detrimental impact of fake news. We should raise a generation with a ‘no harm’ policy and addressing this challenge is paramount.
In addition to building a robust and an up-to-date legal and policy framework, Sri Lanka needs to engage and empower both government officers and concerned citizens on managing the threat of fake news.
Fake news stand in the way of fundamental freedoms such as right to free expression and right to information. Do you agree?
A: There is no democracy without discipline. There is no absolute freedom. People can express their views with responsibility.
We should never permit actors seeking to harm society hide behind laws and principles. As governments have not been vigilant and alert, the worldwide web is harnessed by terrorist and criminal groups. We should never permit threat actors to operate either in the physical or cyber space. Permitting threat actors to radicalise and mobilise youth is not freedom. It is neglect and ignorance.
The Easter Sunday architect Zaharan Hashim ran multiple websites and Facebook sites. Through these sites Zaharan recruited youth to join and support the ideals of the Islamic State, a lethal terrorist organisation. The government’s requests to take down these sites were not taken seriously. Facebook took down Zaharan’s site only after Easter Sunday attack. This should have never happened.
Do you also agree that preventing fake news is in the interest of all citizens of a country, as it can lead to misunderstanding between communities, incite communal disharmony and further fragment the society?
A: What is happening in the online space spills over to the offline space. Sinhalese, Tamils and Muslims enjoyed harmonious communal relations in the past. After war and Easter attacks, the cordial relations were disrupted.
In Sri Lanka, fake news is responsible largely for igniting suspicion, prejudice, resentment, anger and hatred between the communities. Fake news radicalises and polarises communities especially the youth. We need to address this, both at the legal and ground level.
To build that one Sri Lanka, we need to develop a hate-reporting networking. If we do not act, our communities will get further radicalised. To restore relations between the Sinhalese and Tamils at the end of war and to build trust between Muslims-Sinhalese and Muslims-Tamils, we should foster an environment of friendship. As long as we have no brain and muscle to act against fake news, we can never have social harmony.
Does Sri Lanka have laws to prevent or counter fake news at present?
A: No, we do not have the laws. We need dedicated laws to address this apex challenge. The threat is relatively recent with the advent of social media and it has not been addressed. As the pace of technology is constantly changing, we should also update the law.
It is in public interest that we move forward both to secure the extant and emerging generation from fake news. The damage done to Sri Lanka both at home and abroad by turning a blind eye to fake news is humongous. For instance, the terrorist supporters said there was a ‘genocide’ in Sri Lanka. The Sri Lankan Government reintegrated both the displaced Sri Lankan Tamils and rehabilitated the LTTE cadres. The international community witnessed this process and there is supportive documentation that there was no systematic termination of a community. However, if one googles ‘Sri Lanka,’ the online sites refers to a ‘genocide’ by the Sri Lankan military. The reality is that the Sri Lankan security forces specially the military rescued the Tamil civilians taken hostage and used as a human shield by the LTTE.
It is in the long-term national interest of the security of Sri Lanka that we address such fake news from being disseminated both legally and operationally. If we do not, the next generation will believe in terrorist propaganda that there was ‘genocide’ in Sri Lanka. Already, a tiny segment of the international community believes in the terrorist message! To secure public tranquillity and future relations between communities, it is vital that Sri Lanka address such misinformation and disinformation. To ensure that Sri Lanka maintains cordial relations with other countries and Sri Lankan communities living overseas, we should build far reaching measures including legislation to take action against the purveyors of online falsehoods and manipulation.
Can you give examples of mechanisms adopted by other countries to prevent / counter fake news?
A: Singapore has designed a law to allow authorities to respond to fake news or false information through a graduated process of enforcing links to fact-checking statements, censorship of website or assets on social media platforms, and criminal charges. Known as the Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act, the Fake News Law is a statute of the Parliament of Singapore that enables authorities to tackle the spread of fake news or false information.
The purpose of the Act, as outlined in section 5 is to ‘to prevent the communication of false statements of fact in Singapore and to enable measures to be taken to counteract the effects of such communication; to suppress the financing, promotion and other support of online locations that repeatedly communicate false statements of fact in Singapore; to enable measures to be taken to detect, control and safeguard against coordinated inauthentic behaviour and other misuses of online accounts and bots; and to enable measures to be taken to enhance disclosure of information concerning paid content directed towards a political end.’
It seems that attempts are now being made to build up a different and dangerous narrative regarding the attacks that took place on Easter Sunday 2019, and the events leading up to them. Such conspiracy theories can divert the attention away from the very real threat of Islamist fundamentalism rising in some parts of the country. Your comment.
A: The Easter Sunday attacks had been investigated and inquired into thoroughly by the domestic and foreign law enforcement authorities and intelligence agencies. In addition to the Criminal Investigations Department, the lead agency in Sri Lanka, several foreign counterparts from INTERPOL to Australian Federal Police, New Scotland Yard and the Federal Bureau of Investigations played a frontline role. In Sri Lanka itself, the SIS, MI, Special Branch and the TID investigated and inquired into the Easter attack. Three commissions have also reported their findings. However, there are troublemakers who want to tell a different story. Government has to ensure that the truth is not distorted. Such distortion will prevent the issue of Muslim radicalisation from being addressed. Although the imminent threat has been neutralised through executive action, the radicalisation pipeline that produced Zahran and his followers remains intact. The Government needs to work with three interlinked domains to mitigate the threat – the religious, educational and cyber domains.
As an expert on terrorism, who has encountered and interviewed a number of terrorist leaders and associates, what is your assessment of the role played by Abdul Cader Fathima Hadiya in the Easter Sunday attacks?
A: As the wife of Zaharan, Hadiya was compliant to her husband. Hadiya knew that Zaharan was the leader of the Islamic State of Sri Lanka and was planning to commit mass murder. A week after the Easter attacks, Hadiya did not join the Islamic State members and their families in conducting the mass suicide in Sainthamarudu. As she went to a secular school, she rejected the invitation to die with the rest to go to ‘paradise.’ After Hadiya and their daughter were rescued by the military and treated by the doctors, she has cooperated with the Government. She has been debriefed extensively and she has cooperated fully with the investigators and intelligence officers.
The Military, Police and iIntelligence officers have treated Hadiya humanely. Hadiya’s testimony is vital to successfully prosecute those who directly and indirectly engaged in terrorism and extremism. Hadiya’s message of regret, remorse and repentance is paramount to prevent future Muslims from joining exclusivist, extremist and terrorist entities. If appropriately rehabilitated, she will be a powerful voice to mitigate the threat of religious exclusivism and extremism in the world, the region and Sri Lanka.
How should Sri Lanka strengthen its national security apparatus to prevent another attack similar to the Easter Sunday bombings?
A: Sri Lanka should restructure the existing security architecture to meet current and emerging threats. For instance, there is no DIG for national security. There is no Intelligence Act. Within the Military forces there is no cyber command. There is no National Security Secretariat.
Sri Lanka should develop a milestone course in national security for all security forces personnel. No officer should be promoted beyond the rank of a Major or an ASG without a certificate in national security. All political office holders should follow a mandatory course in national security. All civil servants both foreign service officers and defence officers, should follow the certificate course in national security.
The preeminent threat facing the world and the region is from terrorism perpetrated by Muslims radicalised by religious fanatics like Zaharan.
Considering the long-term threat facing the world from Muslim radicalisation and violence, Sri Lanka should build eight capabilities. First, raise a generation of specialists in Muslim threat groups, especially Islamic State, al-Qaeda, and likeminded groups. Second, build the cyber capabilities within military, law enforcement and intelligence to monitor and hunt terrorists and supporters. Third, build the de-radicalisation capacity to rehabilitate terrorists and counter radicalisation capacity to engage extremists. Fourth, regulate the mosques, madrasah and Muslim institutions and ensure that the sacred spaces are used to promote harmony and not hatred. Fifth, all clerics should be certified before they teach or preach religion. Sixth, make national education mandatory – no separate Sinhala, Tamil and Muslim schools. Seventh, all sects should be proscribed and foreign ideologies supplanting Sri Lankan Muslim heritage should be contained.
Eight, develop and implement a Maintenance of Religious and Ethnic harmony Act.
A British newspaper claimed recently that dozens of depraved ISIS ‘soldiers’ returned to Sri Lanka following the collapse of their so-called caliphate. What is your assessment of the threat posed by these ‘soldiers’ to Sri Lanka’s national security? Do you think Sri Lanka’s intelligence apparatus has taken sufficient steps to monitor their movements?
A: Sri Lankan security and intelligence community has been revamped. Both the State Intelligence Service and the Directorate of Military Intelligence have been revamped and are led by competent leaders. A visionary, collective and a decisive leader, President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has given the highest priority to national security. He has appointed his best and ablest men and women to staff security and intelligence portfolios.
General Kamal Gunaratna, the Secretary of Defence, General Jagath Alwis, the Chief of National Intelligence and General Suresh Sally, Director, State Intelligence Service are goal-oriented leaders. They are highly trained, competent, and proven war fighters. They will never neglect national security. No foreign terrorist fighter will ever return to Sri Lanka and remain undetected as long as Government security and intelligence personnel are alert and vigilant. As a mark of respect for those innocent lives lost, we should keep it that way.
