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SINGAPORE – An expert witness said on Wednesday (October 7) that a Facebook post sharing an article with “shocking” allegations about Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong would have spread faster than articles correcting fake news.
Dr. Phan Tuan Quang of the University of Hong Kong School of Business, in a report submitted to the court for the defamation trial against blogger Leong Sze Hian, had estimated that Leong’s post would have appeared in the news of Facebook of 11,749 users.
But Leong’s attorney, Lim Tean, said the report was simply “guesswork,” noting that the academic had no actual data on the Facebook post to work with.
The virality of Leong’s post, which contained a link to an article falsely linking PM Lee to the 1MDB corruption scandal in Malaysia, came under scrutiny on the second day of the hearing, and PM Lee’s lawyers argued that the post would have had, conservatively, been viewed by several hundred Singaporeans, and Mr. Lim denies this.
Dr. Phan, an associate professor of innovation and information management who, according to lawyers at PM Lee, has researched social media for more than 15 years and published scholarly articles on the topic in top-tier journals, said that, at least 200-400 Singaporeans would have clicked on the link to the article in the publication.
These were very conservative estimates that took into account factors such as that the government had refuted the article that had been widely published by the media, he added.
But Mr. Lim disputed these estimates, saying that Dr. Phan “had hardly any data or evidence to work on, and his entire report is based on a number of assumptions.”
He added: “I am telling you that your analysis is really conjecture … not expert evidence at all.”
Disagreeing, Dr. Phan said he had worked with Facebook’s data science teams quite extensively and published four articles on his dataset.
Their estimates were based on public data from Facebook and statistical analysis, it added. “What I am presenting are both public investigations and comments and expert opinions on how many people might have seen the post … It is not unfounded.”
And while he was unable to view Leong’s Facebook post, which was deleted on November 10, 2018, Dr. Phan said he saw screenshots of the post and Leong’s timeline.
He also said that the figures he cited were the “fewest number of people” who could have seen the post.
On why the post would have spread quickly, Dr Phan said the “shocking” allegations, including the fact that Prime Minister Lee had allowed banks to incite former Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak to launder money from 1MDB, they had meant that the post and article would have caught people’s eyes and been more easily shared.
The allegations gave the post and article a “novelty” factor, which researchers have found contributes to the virality of fake news.
Lim responded that many news reports have been published about IMDB’s long saga, saying that it couldn’t have been news when the fake article was published.
Dr. Phan replied, “It’s novel because of the connection to Mr. Lee … (the article) was quite shocking, that’s why it was covered … Otherwise it wouldn’t be mentioned and we wouldn’t be here.”
He added that according to his research, fake news moves faster than real news and can reach “peak penetration” in 1,000 minutes, or around 16 hours.
This means that a particular post from a person can reach his friends and friends of his friends, along a chain that is 15 levels away from him.
Referring to news reports about the various government agencies and officials refuting the allegations in the article, Mr. Lim asked Dr. Phan if the people who saw Mr. Leong’s post could have seen the news reports and knew that the article was fake news.
Mr. Phan said yes, but added that he had taken this into account when determining the post extension.
He also agreed with Mr. Lim that more people could have seen the rebuttals than the number that saw Mr. Leong’s post.
But there was reason to believe that the people who saw Leong’s post might not be the same people who saw the government’s rebuttals in mainstream media outlets like The Straits Times and CNA, he added.
“It has been well studied that people who follow certain characters or personalities on social media are looking for certain information,” he said, adding that Facebook’s news algorithm will prioritize content that people read frequently.
‘Not independent’
Mr. Lim also said that Dr. Phan could not be considered an independent expert because he previously received research grants from the Singapore government and its agencies when he was a professor at the National University of Singapore from August 2011 to May this year.
“His evidence is tainted by the fact that he has a past relationship with the Singapore government, of which (Mr. Lee) is the head,” he said.
But Dr. Phan said it is common for academics to work on research projects that involve government agencies and obtain such grants.
As an academic, he was free to conduct an impartial investigation, he added.
He noted that the direction the investigation takes is not decided by one of the parties, but by a team of investigators, including those outside of Singapore.
The grants were objectively awarded by a variety of institutions, he said.
Leong Sze Hian does not take the stand
After a lunch break, Lim told Judge Aedit Abdullah that Leong will not take the stand for questioning, saying it was not necessary to do so as the case was so “frivolous and vexatious” that he should “laugh”. Outside court”.
He added that most of the points raised by Prime Minister Lee’s lawyers were legal points that Mr. Leong was unable to answer in cross-examination and that could be addressed in his presentations.
He also said he was satisfied with what he had obtained by questioning PM Lee on Tuesday.
To this, PM Lee’s attorney, Mr. Davinder Singh, noted that Mr. Lim had said in his opening statement that Mr. Leong would appear for cross-examination.
Singh added that Leong had also said in Facebook posts and interviews that he would fight Prime Minister Lee in court not only for himself, but for his supporters and Singaporeans in general.
“We have a situation where (Mr. Lee) appeared in court and took the stand without fear of any questions and ready to defend his position,” he said.
“And yet the person claiming to have abused the court process and turned around and fled. This is deeply disappointing … I would just add one thing, Your Honor: this is not surprising.”
The hearing was postponed until November.
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