Information on Government's Factually Website

Ms Sun Xueling asked the Minister for Communications and Information (a) whether the Government's Factually website is actively being used to verify information and debunk fake news about Government policies; and (b) whether the information on the website is updated in a timely manner.

Sir, Factually aims to clarify widespread or common misperceptions of Government policy, or inaccurate assertions on matters of public concern that can harm Singapore’s social fabric. This is done on a timely basis to ensure that prevailing falsehoods and misinformation are debunked as soon as possible.

Over the years, the site has addressed inaccurate assertions on various matters, ranging from savings and taxes to education and employment. For example, in January this year, several online articles claimed that the Government had raised the Central Provident Fund Retirement Sum in a "secret policy change" when, in fact, the revised figures had been publicly announced in 2015 and was widely reported in the media. Another online rumour claimed that our public universities reserve a minimum 20% quota for foreign students when, in fact, no such policy exists.

Sir, since its inception in May 2012, 186 Factually articles have been published on the Gov.sg website. Besides providing written facts, Factually also employs graphics to provide greater clarity. In the coming year, we will explore using videos as well.

I thank the Minister for the reply. I would like to understand what are the criteria used to determine what policies need to be explained on the Government Factually website. Does it have to do with how serious the subject matter is or is it also correlated to how viral the fake news is?

Sir, Factually aims to address what we call "drums", that is, distortions, rumours, untruths, myths, smears and inaccurate information published in the public domain. We either do it proactively, when we see something online that has gone viral and there is a lot of misinformation, or when we receive feedback from the public for us to clarify.

This is a proactive process that we continue to refine as we go along. Certainly, when the misinformation has really gone viral that needs to be addressed very quickly, we will do it in a timely manner. Those that may not, but still needs to be addressed, we either do it ourselves or we work with the various agencies which are involved to see whether we can push out the information as quickly as possible.