In this edition of Views from the Top published in The Business Times on 17 April 2017, Achieve Group CEO Joshua Yim shared his thoughts how might society combat the rise of fake news? What can businesses do to protect themselves from the effects of falsehoods, and help stem the scourge?

Fake news is equivalent to defamation and deception, causing mistrust and harm to people and organizations who may have conducted themselves with integrity and civil consciousness. This bad social phenomenon should be stopped.

Firstly, anyone of us receiving dubious news or suspicious information through the social media should not forward to their network without verifying creditability.  If cannot be verified, exercise self-discipline not to pass on the news.  Authoritative bodies or credible media source will issue their stand and findings in due course.

The perpetrator is making use of the general public as their victims for their plot and we should not fall prey. Anyone forwarding fictitious news has just become pawns to their manipulation!

Secondly, I also strongly urge the government to look seriously into this matter, possibly setting up a task force to deliberate of how to bring these individuals with such malicious behaviors to the task.

Joshua Yim, CEO of Achieve Group