Paying the price for false information about storm and flood situation in Hai Duong

Unverified news

On the morning of September 10, Ms. Vuong Thi H. (born in 1991, residing in Cam Vu commune, Cam Giang) went online to view and update the storm situation in the province. Ms. H. saw a number of articles posting information related to the dike breach, including Thanh Ha district. Seeing this, Ms. H. did not verify the above information to see which agency issued it, whether it was true or false, and immediately used her personal Facebook account to post the content "Thanh Ha dike breached". Ms. H. posted the above information with the aim of increasing interaction for her personal online sales account. After posting for 15 minutes, realizing that the information was not true and showed signs of violating the law, Ms. H. quickly deleted this content.

Along with Ms. H. on September 10, many Facebook accounts posted articles, commented, and shared some false information about the dike breach in the districts of Cam Giang, Thanh Ha, and Chi Linh City. In recent days, the flood situation in the province has been complicated, and the information about the above cases has attracted the attention and shares of many people. The false information has caused many people to panic and worry excessively about the flood situation, significantly affecting flood prevention and security and order.

The most obvious consequence of this false information is that many families rushed to buy goods to stock up. There were even jostling in some shopping places to buy goods. This scene is no different from the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic in our province. In many stores, essential items such as rice, instant noodles, eggs, drinks and many other types of dried goods were not available for sale. On the evening of September 10, many stores and markets also ran out of eggs and instant noodles.

Like many people, when seeing false information posted on social networks about flooding and dike breaks, fearing a bad situation, Ms. Pham Thi Quynh Trang in residential area No. 4, Nhi Chau ward (Hai Duong city) hurriedly put aside her work to go shopping. Ms. Trang did not forget to call her family to arrange the furniture on the first floor to prevent flooding. "There are a total of 7 people in my family, including the elderly and children, so we need to buy a variety of goods in large quantities to store, especially rice, meat, fish, eggs, instant noodles, and green vegetables. The bustling buying and selling of goods in stores and markets makes me worried," Ms. Trang shared.

Strictly handle

Immediately after discovering false information about floods and dike breaches appearing on social networking sites such as Facebook and Zalo, the provincial police agencies at all levels quickly took action. From September 10 to the morning of September 11, the police agencies at all levels discovered, verified and invited a total of 21 cases with permanent residence in the districts of Cam Giang, Thanh Mien, Nam Sach, Binh Giang, Kinh Mon town, and Hai Duong city to work.

These cases all admitted that the information they posted about the flood and dike breach was based on rumors and information they saw on social networks, not from official sources or authorities. This information was all untrue. The cases were posted with the purpose of attracting likes, attracting attention, and serving personal purposes. When invited to work by the police, the above cases were all aware of their wrongdoings, violations of the law, and negative consequences for social life. Along with that, they took down and deleted the false posted content and pledged not to repeat the offense.

Faced with false information posted on social networking sites, the province's departments, agencies, and units have actively disseminated and guided the people. Comrade Nguyen Van Lieu, Chairman of the People's Committee of Tien Dong Commune (Tu Ky), said that when seeing a lot of false information posted on social networks about the situation of storms, floods, and dike breaks, the locality has disseminated and mobilized the people in many forms such as information on radio stations, social networking groups of the commune, village, and inter-family groups, etc. to help people understand the problem correctly and clearly. From there, they trust and unite with the locality to participate in natural disaster prevention.

It is forecasted that the flood situation will continue to be complicated in the coming days. The provincial police force will continue to monitor the situation and check the cyberspace to promptly detect and strictly handle cases of false information affecting the prevention work. The police agency recommends that people strictly comply with regulations on the use of social networks. In particular, do not post or share false information or unverified information on social networks that affect the work of natural disaster prevention, causing public opinion and negative consequences for society.