The Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) has told the House tri-committee (tri-comm) that it plans to tap artificial intelligence (AI) in its monitoring against fake news and online scams.
Attending the final tri-comm hearing on Thursday, June 5 was DICT Secretary Henry Aguda, who said his agency had been religiously coordinating with various social media platforms to combat online disinformation.
But DICT says it has something up its sleeve.
“Sa DICT naman po ano ang ginagawa namin, meron na po kaming ginagawang AI-powered system para maka-detect ng fake news at online scams (As for DICT, what we’re doing is developing an AI-powered system to detect fake news and online scams)," Aguda told the joint panel led by Santa Rosa City lone district Rep. Dan Fernandez.
The DICT says very capable Filipinos are creating these systems. "May gawang Pilipino, matatalino po yung mga bata. Gumawa sila ng sistema na pwede naming i-endorse ngayon sa Meta at tsaka mga other platforms na gamitin nila para mag-detect ng fake news. Gawang Pilipino po yan."
(We have something made by Filipinos, there's young, brilliant people working on it. They developed a system that we can now endorse to Meta and other platforms for detecting fake news. That is Filipino-made.)
"Sana tanggapin ng Meta (Hopefully Meta will accept)," Aguda added, referring to the companies behind popular platforms Facebook and Instagram.
The Philippines is less than a month removed from the mid-term elections, where fake news and disinformation became rampant online. An ofciial of the tri-comm, Surigao del Sur 2nd district Rep. Johnny Pimentel, said he was targeted by fake news in the lead up to the polls.
"Naging saksi po tayo sa malawakang pagpapakalat ng fake news na maging ako po ay hindi nakaligtas (We have witnessed the widespread dissemination of fake news, and even I was not spared)," Pimentel said.
Speaking of Meta, Aguda reported to the tri-comm that it would be implementing a "demotion" system as a way to immediately limit the dissemination of posts or information that the online community had reported wrong or fake.
But the Cabinet member said a proactive system would be better. "Sa amin ang mas gusto naman ay isang masusing regulasyon para talagang…hindi na ba reactive yung pag-attend sa fake news, proactive na."
(For us, we would prefer critical regulation so that...fake news could be addressed not reactively but proactively.)
Fernandez said the tri-comm would come up with a committee report to mark the end of its hearings in the 19th Congress.