KOTA KINABALU: The civil service must provide real-time information on government policies to the public due to the immense influence of social media, says Sabah Public Service (JPANS) director-general Datuk Rosmadi Datu Sulai (pic).
He said this information spread widely through social media and other non-conventional platforms were often unverified and could be misleading.
Rosmadi added that with social media, everyone can be a reporter as they can upload whatever they want at any time they wish to.
“We are slow. We should be moving on or otherwise we would be obsolete,” he said after a media event with the service and Sabah Journalists Association (SJA) on Saturday (April 15) evening.
“We must work towards getting our news out on a real-time basis,” added Rosmadi.
Rosmadi said that he feels that the government should be operating on a 24-7 schedule because social media works as such.
“The pressure to provide real time news is there and it all comes from these unverified social media ‘news outlets’. We have to counter that,” he said.
Rosmadi said the civil service believes that social media is not real news and hence, they have to do their part.
“This is our duty as government servants. We must feed the public with real time information to balance out the situation,” he stressed.
He said JPANS is also looking into media-related public positions so that the services remain relevant.
Earlier, SJA president Datuk Muguntan Vanar said he hoped journalists and Sabah’s public service could build a closer relationship to provide reliable and timely information to the public.
He said social media today spins many issues out of proportion and added that while such issues were minor, the slow response to them from someone in charge could be very damaging.
“It is my hope and that of my media colleagues that official explanations are given quickly to us in the mainstream media so that we can immediately share the facts with the public,” he said.
“Once people know the facts, the issues spun in social media will lose their traction or public interest,” added Muguntan.
