DAP urges Meta to shut KKB candidate impersonation account

The Democratic Action Party (DAP) has requested Meta to shut down a fake account impersonating Pang Sock Tao, unity government’s candidate for Kuala Kubu Baru (KKB) by-election. 

"Pang's candidature was announced last night. Today, someone has used her photos to create a fake account on Facebook," said DAP National Publicity Secretary Teo Nie Ching in a statement. "For the information of all Malaysians, Pang's official page is 'https://www.facebook.com/XiaoTaoUbahTV', which was created since February 2018, and she has 33k followers on her official page."

Teo added that the party has requested Meta to close down the fake account and believes that there will be more fake accounts impersonating party candidates or leaders. These impersonators, she added, will likely spread disinformation and hate speech during the upcoming by-election. 

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Teo said that AI has made generating content easy and urged Malaysians to fact-check. 

"However, I believe there will be more fake accounts, impersonating our candidate or leaders, spreading disinformation and hate speeches. With the help of AI, generating contents has become so easy. Be an informed netizen. Check your facts from reliable sources. Don’t be influenced by misinformation easily," said Teo.

"I also want to urge those not aligned with us to compete in a healthy way. Engage, not enrage; debate, not hate." 

In a separate statement, Teo said that Pang had "understandably received much attention after the announcement of her candidacy" and emphasised that the dangerous statements made by the fake account, is fake. 

"They used her photo, they used the material that we had prepared, but if you click on the account, you will be able to see this account was created today," added Teo.

She said that impersonating leaders and candidates is something the party had foreseen during state election, by-election, national election and prevention of such is not possible unless Meta improves its regulations. 

"While we can request Meta to take it down, there's no way we can prevent it from happening unless Meta actually strengthens their regulations," said Teo. "Say you must produce your identity card before you open an account."

The politician added that netizens must be prudent and check when an account was created and to always refer back to the official account for official statements. 

The Election Commission (EC) has fixed the polling date for the KKB by-election in Selangor on 11 May. Nominations were held last Saturday (27 April). Early voting begins on 7 May.

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