Daily Lessons from Life 18 September 2017 - Fake news by the Minister of Education Ong?

"Netizens call out Minister Ong Ye Kung over debunked Facebook post

A Facebook post put up by Minister of Education (Higher Education) Ong Ye Kung has been dubbed “fake news” by netizens.

On Tuesday (12 Sept), Ong had posted a photo of a giant underwater iceberg and said in the caption that he got the photo “from a former colleague, who in turn got it from a rig manager working on an offshore rig at Newfoundland”.

Ong added, “The sea was calm, sun directly overhead, and the diver managed to get a perfect shot. It shows how small we humans are compared to the creations of Mother Nature.”

Yahoo News SingaporeSeptember 15, 2017

File photo of Ong Ye Kung.

A Facebook post put up by Minister of Education (Higher Education) Ong Ye Kung has been dubbed “fake news” by netizens.

On Tuesday (12 Sept), Ong had posted a photo of a giant underwater iceberg and said in the caption that he got the photo “from a former colleague, who in turn got it from a rig manager working on an offshore rig at Newfoundland”.

Ong added, “The sea was calm, sun directly overhead, and the diver managed to get a perfect shot. It shows how small we humans are compared to the creations of Mother Nature.”

However, commenters pointed out that the photo in question was actually produced 18 years ago in 1999 by Ralph A Clevenger, a professional nature and underwater photographer.

According to Clevenger, the image is a composite of four different photos taken at different locations around the planet. The images were then pieced together in Photoshop.

Netizens recognised the photo and commented on the posts, with some correcting Ong.

Facebook user Benjamin Matchap called it “FAKENEWS!”, while another, Raymond Tham, said “it is a composite shot by a famous photographer” and added the hashtag #fakenews."

Well, I m sure Minister Ong meant well to re-post this photo fr an x-colleague. He was using it to remind us how small we human being r.

Of course some ripped into him n accused him of spreading "fake news" with heavier penalties being considered in the cybersecurity act that is under going amendments. 

There r concerns that this gov is increasingly behaving in the "I know what is best for u n do it my way" mode n may use the new law to muzzle free responsible expression of reasoned views.

This incident merely highlight everyone who is somebody has to at least double check his/her source b4 re-posting or spreading that piece of informations. 

The decent thing for Minister Ong to respond will be: I made a mistake n should hv double checked my source. Tks to the few readers who corrected my input errors!

May the gov be keenly aware that genuine mistakes can be made by well intentioned people.

So, be careful how the system work!!