Caretaker Federal Minister for Information, Broadcasting and Parliamentary Affairs Murtaza Solangi Wednesday said that the mechanism for fact-checking will have to be improved in the arena of digital media to counter fake news and misinformation.
Delivering his speech at the 2nd International Media and Communication Conference here, he said that the year 2024 was the year of elections in different countries including Pakistan, India, Indonesia, United States of America.
He urged the media industry to play a responsible role as its responsibility was to protect the public interest. “Journalism is primarily about defending the public’s right to know,” Murtaza Solangi maintained.
The minister said the challenges of the digital age were also great as artificial intelligence, deep fake, voice cloning and misinformation factories have made it difficult to sift fact from fiction.
He said that besides the benefits of modern technology in media, there were many risks also involved.
He said that many tasks are being done by using artificial intelligence and voice cloning.
The fundamental principle of journalism was the gatekeeper system to verify the facts but the new media had ignored “the gatekeeper”.
In the era of artificial intelligence, deep fake, cyber cloning, he said it had become difficult to bring the truth to people, Murtaza Solangi opined.
He said for countering this problem there was a need to build verification laboratories and newsrooms must create fact-check departments. He said it was necessary to check serious threats of the digital age otherwise truth will become the main casualty.—APP
