Ministry reports eight pages over 'fake news'

The Digital Economy and Society (DES) Ministry is pursuing legal action against a number of people it accuses of violating the Computer Crimes Act.

According to the DES Ministry, eight URLs -- six of which are based on Facebook, while the remaining two are on YouTube -- were found to have violated the ministry's regulations aimed at combatting fake news.

The ministry had previously petitioned the court three times to suspend 90 URLs which it said contained illegal content.

The court will allow the URLs' administrators to defend themselves against the ministry's claims, before it considers any action against the pages.

Three hearings have been scheduled between now and October.

In total, the ministry has filed 11 complaints of Computer Crimes Act violations with the courts, involving 235 URLs in total.

Between Aug 23-29, the anti-fake news centre investigated 148 articles which it suspected to be fake news, 76 of which have already been flagged, according to the DES.

Of the 76, 17 were affiliated with the eight URLs whose admins are now are facing legal action, while eight contained distorted information. Fifty-one articles, however, proved to be genuine stories.