Regulate Social Media To Curb Manipulations By Faceless Netizens

From Zakaria Abdul Wahab JINAN (China), Nov 9 (Bernama) -- Countries in the East Asian region should contemplate on regulating the social media so as to ensure the netizens are held accountable for any wrongdoings in the cyber space, a media forum heard om Tuesday. Imron Cotan, the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Indonesia Embassy in China, said “we should give face to the faceless” social media practitioners so that they could be identified and punitive action taken against them for any media manipulations. He was speaking at the one-day annual Fourth 10+3 Media Cooperation Forum organised by China’s major newspaper, People’s Daily and hosted by media company Dazhong News Group, here. Over 50 top media representatives from the 10 Asean member countries, China, Japan and South Korea attended the forum to discuss ways to strengthen their mutual cooperation and unity as well as to uplift their roles as the only voice from the region on the international media stage. Cotan said with such regulations netizens would “measure his words” when expressing their views and be responsible with their facts and data, leading to a legally-bounded and credible cyberspace society. He said currently the faceless social media owners, such as facebook account holders, twitters and bloggers, could escape from any legal action if they provided fake and misleading information to the public. He added they simply appeared in the cyber screen when they saw issues that could be manipulated and disappeared when the issues died down without feeling any regret for their comments that could be disastrous to the public or society. However, Cotan said the social media regulations should not be designed to stifle the healthy debate among the netizens. Wang Zhongwei, Vice Minister of State Council Office, said Asian media practitioners should play an active role in promoting harmonious relations between their countries by capitalising on the media by telling their own stories and not relying on reports by the western-dominated media. He said they should do more coverage on their cultures and traditions, and human development so as to make their people better understand each other, and also increase cooperation and communication among their respective countries. Zhongwei also said they should take advantage of the new media to further exchange ideas among them to develop and bring progress to the Asian region, and propagate their ideals to make the world better understand and learn from them. During the roundtable talk, several Asean media representatives voiced their concerns about the challenges posed by the new media on their newspapers, television and radio stations and news agencies, which if not tackled correctly could lead to their demise. The acting deputy editor of the Brunei-based daily Borneo Bulletin, Lance Thoo Sin Lin said although there was an onslaught by the new media, it was too early to write off the traditional ones as what still mattered most to the public were accurate and credible contents, which the contender could not offer much. He said to face the challenge from the new media, the traditional ones should be willing to absorb innovations, build applications based on mobile devices, employ skilled and professional journalists, and make their web presence felt. The media practitioners will visit the cities of Zibo and Qingdao in the next few days to look at the high-tech economic zones as part of the forum programme which ends Saturday. -– BERNAMA Malaysia