False Rumors: Profiting by Sabotaging Other People's Achievements!

(Baonghean)It is hard to believe that in today's information society, despite being supported by many types of media, dozens of telecommunications networks with wide coverage and strong connectivity, hundreds of press agencies, thousands of official websites, and countless information channels that can support, provide, confirm, and authenticate information quickly, promptly, accurately, and reliably, false rumors still appear and many of those rumors have left behind great consequences and damage.

We have been propagating and raising awareness about the unpredictable harmful effects of false rumors on all areas of social life. However, false rumors still have "fertile ground" to exist and thrive. Even those who hold large amounts of assets, regularly operate in a dynamic, modern environment, and live in information hubs, can still be strongly affected by false rumors, leading to great losses due to listening to and believing false rumors. That is very regrettable.

Last week, the false rumor that the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Bank for Investment and Development of Vietnam (BIDV) was arrested dealt a heavy blow to the stock market, gold market, and foreign exchange market. According to preliminary statistics, nearly 34 trillion VND has "disappeared" in the stock market alone due to the sharp drop in stock prices since the rumor appeared. That is not counting the damage caused by the impact on BIDV's brand. The unusual signs in trading activities show that bad guys have created opportunities to "fish in troubled waters", while many investors withdrew, lowered prices and sold off, purchasing power still increased sharply. According to BIDV leaders, in this case, those who spread rumors took advantage of the situation to profit by earning at least 500-700 billion VND. BIDV also said that 4 stocks suspected of price manipulation appeared on the stock market in the past 3 sessions. These are necessary bases to serve the investigation process.

However, the concern is why there are still such large "fertile lands" for bad guys to freely "sow" harmful rumors, negatively affecting economic and social life. Perhaps, the perpetrators of spreading false rumors have grasped the "Achilles heel"/weakness of many investors, which is the unprofessional method and way of accessing and processing information, the way of doing business according to crowd psychology. That is, a large part of the stock market investors are led by decisions that are not based on reason, not based on accurate, sober, objective calculations, but only act according to the crowd in an emotional, silly way. While they are completely able to be calm and cautious to verify information, confirm information before making important decisions. Therefore, the consequence is that they have to pay the price with damage to themselves, at the same time also causing damage to society. Over 30 trillion VND “evaporated” in one trading session is not a small number, especially when compared to the total budget revenue in 2012 of many provinces and cities across the country. That is not to mention the consequences and impacts related to the issue of monetary security and monetary policy of the country.

However, in any case, Mr. Tran Bac Ha - Chairman of the Board of Directors of BIDV, appeared in time to refute the rumor, the press and authorities also widely informed the whole society to prevent further impacts or dispel doubts. Looking back at recent years, we have also witnessed many false rumors that caused hardship for producers and businesses, such as: eating grapefruit causes cancer, fresh milk has leeches, Vietnam lacks rice, Vietnam issues 1 million VND banknotes, Vietnam changes currency... Fortunately, those rumors were eventually discovered and refuted.

From this incident, a series of questions have been raised, which are also issues that need attention: What should we do with the rumors that exist in social life that we have not been able to, cannot detect and find a way to refute? How can we refute the false rumors that are floating around in life, because not everyone, not every issue can be quickly interested by the media to help refute the information? How can we prevent false rumors from having a "fertile ground" to exist and spread?

In reality, many rumors related to individuals, characters, products, or organizations, sometimes even politicians, continue to exist and spread, without being able to explain or finding a way to refute false rumors. The press once reported the story of a female teacher who was suddenly rumored to be infected with HIV. Too miserable, this teacher had to go for a test to clear her name and the test results showed that she was not infected with this disease of the century. However, the rumors still spread, the social environment where she worked still kept a cold look, treating her as if she were an HIV victim. But the truth is that she was just a victim of false rumors, and according to this teacher, sometimes it was even more terrible than having HIV, because at times she had to think about death. Then there are things like in the office, collective, many people are suddenly "painted snakes with legs" by others, suddenly associated with gestures, behaviors, words, stories, without the person himself knowing. Its harmful effects cannot be underestimated. Therefore, we cannot be subjective with all kinds of rumors, even if sometimes they are just rumors on a small scale.

To limit and prevent the impact of rumors, the detection and implementation of those who spread false rumors must be strictly handled and punished appropriately. Bad people and bad forces spreading rumors also have many purposes: it can be to destroy reputation, competitiveness for economic purposes; it can be to lower the influence, to degrade the image of others for political purposes... False rumors are all for bad purposes, the purpose of competing for influence by destroying the reputation, prestige, capacity, strength, and assets of individuals or groups, with the aim of making illegal profits both economically and politically.

Another important content that needs to be well implemented is to strengthen measures and forms of propaganda, regularly warn and recommend to raise awareness, and limit to the maximum extent the creation of "land" for false rumors to exist. When receiving unusual information, each person can calmly and carefully verify the information through reliable sources. It is advisable to listen and grasp information through official information "channels" of competent authorities, as well as information from the people mentioned. At the same time, individuals and organizations related to false rumors need to actively coordinate with competent authorities to suppress the rumors.

Duc Duong