Second Speaker Zul Digital (Gov)

SECOND SPEAKER (GOV TEAM)
Motion 3: THIS HOUSE BELIEVE THAT DIGITAL INFORMATION HAS

DONE MORE HARM THAN GOOD IN PROTECTING DEMOCRACY
The motion for today is “THIS HOUSE BELIEVE THAT DIGITAL

INFORMATION HAS DONE MORE HARM THAN GOOD IN
PROTECTING DEMOCRACY.”
Ladies and gentlemen, we, the government team strongly and undoubtedly agree
with this motion. We strongly believe that digital information has done more
harm than good in protecting democracy as it is exploitable.
As a second speaker of the government team, before I proceed with our team’s
second and third arguments, I would like to refute the first point of the
opposition team.
REBUTTALS
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Members of the august house let me continue with our team’s second argument
to support our case line which is digital information has done more harm than
good in protecting democracy as it is exploitable.
Ladies and gentlemen, now it is my turn to clarify why we as the government
believe that digital information is actually harming our democracy and not in
any way protecting it. Digital information is undeniably vast and useful, but
everything in life comes as a pair. With pros, come cons. As for this matter, our
2nd point as the affirmative side is digital information leads to the spread of
misleading information.
As time passes, the information reach capability increases exponentially. Plus,

with the ever-growing technology inventions, the amount of information
available to us is limitless. Before we go any further, let's take a moment to
understand how digital information is exploited. Like I said earlier, the amount
of information available to us is very huge, therefore it's actually hard to keep
track of which one is true or wrong just based on your perception and not actual
research. That opens a very huge window of opportunity for an information
point to be suppressed and replaced with others.
This misleading information exploit is happening on a daily basis that is seen to

happen in our own country not so long time ago. Back almost a year ago, when
Covid-19 resurged in our country, a certain group of people started to cause
disinformation. This is different than misinformation whereas that is caused by
honest true mistake while disinformation is deliberately created information to
mislead and deceive.
Some people will blame literacy skills that some people, just don't have. While
this is undeniable, the truth is actually a lot worse than we thought. Even the
government’s more valiant efforts in the form of fact-checking – spearheaded by
websites such as Sebenarnya.my, the government-operated one-stop center for
debunking false information, and the Quick Response Team, established in
March last year to rapidly verify any viral news – will, unfortunately, be
hamstrung as merely reactive measures. We’re not saying the whole ecosystem
of digital information is not trustworthy, we want to emphasize that the large
size of the information being output risks being false and goes unnoticed.
At the end of the day, even if we are then clarified which information is correct,
the harm sometimes is already done and some effects are just irreversible.
3RD POINT:
Moving on, the third point of the government team is that digital information is
easily exploited which causes digital disruption that ends up hurting democracy.
The years of almost unfettered enthusiasm about the benefits of the internet have
been followed by a period of backlash as users worry about who exploits the
speed, reach, and complexity of the internet for harmful purposes. Over the past
four years – a time of the Brexit decision in the United Kingdom, the American
presidential election, and a variety of other elections – the digital disruption of
democracy has been a leading concern toward the government and people.
Digital disruption has been especially prevalent in today’s day and age. Plus, the
journalism that we are seeing today through digital media has been increasingly
more underwhelming as most media sort to steer people away from the truth by
modifying the actual content to sound controversial or worse than it actually is
to produce more clicks and reactions from users. Lesser people are staying to
their true purpose and instead focusing more on profits and fame. We fear that
this downward spiral towards exploiting people’s emotions will lower the value
of truthful and independent journalism.
Moreover, many digital information experts say they worry about the future of
democracy because the power of major technology companies plays a big role in
democratic discourse. Let’s take look at Facebook as an example. In 2019, the
CEO of Facebook was questioned at The US Capitol due to allegations of
selling their users data to other third parties to be used by third parties including
Cambridge Analytica with the goal of providing a dataset of target
demographics for advertisements to promote propaganda and biased
journalism-- all this results in a democracy that is compromised in all aspects
and shows how easy it is to exploit the users.
Research made by Robert Eipstein, a psychologist at American Institute for

Behavioral Research and Technology has stated, “As of 2015, the outcomes of
25 of the national elections in the world were being determined by Google’s
search engine. If authorities do not act to curtail the power of Big Tech
companies – Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and similar companies that might
emerge in coming years – Choosing what’s the best for yourself, your family
and your country should not be as easy as searching up a few articles on the
Internet, it is something much more important than that.
Ladies and gentlemen, members of the august house, we, the government team
have shown how digital information has done more harm than good in
protecting democracy. I would like to reaffirm that we strongly and definitely
agree with this motion proposed today. We strongly believe that digital
information has done more harm than good in protecting democracy as it is
exploitable.
Thank you.

Second Speaker Zul Digital (Gov)

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SECOND SPEAKER (GOV TEAM)

Motion 3: THIS HOUSE BELIEVE THAT DIGITAL INFORMATION HAS

The motion for today is “THIS HOUSE BELIEVE THAT DIGITAL

As time passes, the information reach capability increases exponentially. Plus,

This misleading information exploit is happening on a daily basis that is seen to

Research made by Robert Eipstein, a psychologist at American Institute for

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