SPREADING at least as quickly as the Covid-19 virus, an “infodemic” has infected large swaths of media and information exchange across the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean). The growing risk of fake news and misinformation comes on the heels of rapidly increasing access to the internet and digital media among Asean citizens. According to We Are Social, in Asean, 69 percent of the region’s 672 million citizens are internet and social media users. A report by Google, Temasek, Bain & Company’s notes that in 2020, 40 million Asean citizens went online for the first time. Increased knowledge aims to assist internet users to discern facts from falsehood thus better identifying if content is fake news.

Source: Manila Times March 10, 2021 16:18 UTC