There had been an exponential increase in lies, fake news and hate speech in the past few days, which will be small fry when compared to the explosion of lies, fake news and hate speech that will take place in the two weeks of the Tanjong Piai parliamentary by-election from Nov. 2 to Nov. 16.

In fact, the Tanjong Piai by-election will be the WhatsApp by-election in Malaysia.

Already, there is in circulation on the social media a purported Pakatan Harapan WhatsApp poster for the Pakatan Harapan candidate Karmaine Sardini, calling on the Tanjong Piai voters to “Undilah Calon Melayu & Islam”, which is clearly designed to spook and antagonise the 42% of the Chinese voters and 1% of the Indian voters – as the Barisan Nasional candidate will be MCA’s Wee Jeck Seng.

A news portal article today headlined “Fake news one of top 3 factors set to cost Pakatan Tg Piai seat” reported:

“A VIRAL WhatsApp message shared in Tg Piai recently claimed that Budget 2020 has funds for men who want to marry more than one wife and this has voters hopping mad.

“The spread of fake news is one of the top three factors that will determine whether PH can hold on to the seat in the November 16 by-election, IDE said.”

In the United Kingdom, even before the date of its General Election was fixed for December 12, British national newspapers were full of articles like “Will fake news wreck the coming general election?” Read the rest of this entry »