Opposition manipulates social media to influence voters

KUALA LUMPUR: Political parties contesting the 14th General Election on May 9 are tightening their strategy during the last lap of campaigning to gain voters’ support which will determine their fate on May 9.

However, during the last seconds of the fierce competition, the opposition pact calling themselves ‘Pakatan Harapan’ are seen to be increasingly manipulating the social media to spread slander and fake news against the Barisan Nasional (BN).

According to Senior Lecturer with the Communications Department of Universiti Putra Malaysia Dr Syed Agil Syed Alsagoff, the campaign by the opposition focused more on creating sentiments of the voters’ dissatisfaction against the BN via the social media such as WhatsApp

“Such ugly influences will make things worse as they (social media users) are likely to believe fake news straight away before making proper justifications or judgement over the viralled contents,” he told Bernama, here.

In its objective to topple the government, the opposition has viralled numerous fake news to the public including recycling old slanderous news. For example, the slander that the BN purportedly brought in a group of Bangladeshi nationals, as phantom voters had been raised again recently with additional information included.

In fact, an original photograph of Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak and Minister of Federal Territories Datuk Seri Tengku Adnan Tengku Mansor showing the two leaders looking at a model of the PR1MA home at a launching ceremony, had been altered by irresponsible groups to appear as though Najib and Tengku Adnan were looking at pile of currency notes as though they were bribe money.

Agil also expected more controversial issues would be raised by the opposition in the last few days before polling to influence the voters.

“The final lap will be the critical period for contesting parties to influence voters’ mind. Having said that, BN has to be careful in formulating final strategies to counter fake news, not just by using facts and figures on what they have done and what they have achieved. I feel that BN also needs to get its message on its plan for the future across and reach to wider audience,” he said.

Meanwhile, although it has become the ‘tsunami’ victims of the opposition, the BN still chose to fight the fake news by giving the facts to members of the public.

In fact, Najib himself had acted to counter the slanderous photographs viralled, together with explanations in his official Facebook website besides creating a factual segment in his blog to reply to the numerous slanders raised such as the national economic issues raising issues such as the national economy and 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB).

Meanwhile, Universiti Utara Malaysia political scientist, Assoc Prof Dr Ahmad Marthada Mohamed had described GE14 as a ‘WhatsApp Election’, saying it was obvious that any message, whether the truth or fake news would be viralled and read quickly in social networks.

He said besides conventional channels, candidates should listen to grouses and the people’s opinion on Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, Telegram and Instagram to address the plaguing issues.