Story & photo by Oliver Samson / Correspondent
FAKE news pieced together by counterfeit and malicious news sites flood the social media today with unrestrained quantity, as well as frequency, targeting millennials.
The agenda is to spread false information to manipulate public opinion in favor of some people by exalting their names while, at the same time, assassinating the character of others who are critical of their views and actions.
Two longtime buddies who saw the conditions of people in a coastal town in Sorsogon while growing up began to notice the torrents of fake news on social media during the searing weeks of the 2016 national and local elections campaign period.
Manases Evasco, a nurse at a Capuchin friary in Mandaluyong, and Emil Estuye, a technical support at a business-process outsourcing in Pasay, saw the online misinformation campaigns as “Goebbels Strokes.”
Paul Joseph Goebbels, a Nazi propagandist and politician who helped the German dictator Adolf Hitler rise to power, argued that by telling the lies over and over again people would eventually accept them as true.
Goebbels, who spoke with arms akimbo to demonstrate superiority, controlled the supervision of Germany’s radio, press, cinema and theater. Aside from anti-Semitism, his propaganda included attacks on Christian churches. Over half a century after his suicide together with his wife and children on May 1, 1945, Goebbels’s psychological propaganda to shape public opinion proves still working in the present time, at least in the Philippines, particularly on social media.
Trolls
MANASES and Emil saw a spike in fake news as early as election campaign period hyping the bid of particular candidates while, at the same time, demolishing the reputation of opponents.
Deceived into thinking that the fake news were legitimate stuff, some of Manases and Emil’s friends, neighbors and workmates bashed every individual who dared challenge the validity of make-believe news, which had been their truth, since they do not check facts and allow themselves to be tricked.
After the 2016 national and local elections, fake news sites still strew the same and newly fabricated stories on social media, spawning and escalating misinformation and outrage among the young and old, as well as the educated and uneducated, who make no effort to validate details.
They boldly and glaringly repost fake news on Facebook, thinking that they are helping others get informed on issues by sharing the malicious pieces that shamelessly masquerade as legitimate news.
To make the malicious articles more convincing, trolls bombard comment boxes with statements in rabid support of the agenda of fake new sites and, at times, throw out expletive and burst out threats to neutralize critics.
Counterfeits
THE numerous reinforcing comments from trolls are taken by an audience who cannot distinguish legitimate news from the fake as an overwhelming expression of support from people vocally and passionately sympathizing with the posts, which were actually counterfeit information.
Manases and Emil noticed friends, colleagues and even individuals they look up to reposting on Facebook fake news and confidently and loudly sharing twisted opinions, which were shaped by the same fake news.
The fake news sites, which weave stories with ugly spatter of grammatical errors, are also trying to establish themselves as more credible than the legitimate media, including the most respected international media outlets, by discrediting them as bias. With fake news without bylines, making no person accountable for any breach of journalism ethics as a result, the fake and malicious sites are also trying to dismiss as inferior some of the most respected media practitioners, who earned the respect not only of the public but also of the finest of fellow journalists through years of work, learning and experience.
Without bylines, people behind fake news and news sites can easily write all the fake news imaginable.
They used a photo of a crime abroad and claimed it happened here to discredit an institution. They grabbed a photo published few years ago by a leading news outlet and used it to accompany a fake story of a relief operation this year to build the image of another institution. They quoted what a foreign statesman did actually not say to make a good projection of a patron.
Lies
SINCE the nature of cyber space is lenient to the use of even the most brilliant lie and the most offensive language, these people can continue spreading lies on social media and remain unpunished for screwing the brains of unsuspecting people, especially the young.
Manases thinks a person becomes misinformed as soon as he assumes the content of posted fake news or memes as true without checking facts.
With the quantity and frequency of posts, he also thinks the barefaced people behind these fake news and fake news sites are paid, as well as the trolls who make them believable, by shelling the comment boxes with reinforcing reactions. If the fake news sites and trolls really are paid, the guys who finance and benefit from keeping the public deceived are reaping bigger rewards.
And while the people, who assume fake news as legitimate, think they become well abreast of issues, the brains who manufacture these lies are raising their middle finger as gesture of victory over other people’s ignorance and over journalists who work hard as heralds of truth.
Meme
EMIL also reflects that the moment a person reposts a malicious article or meme he becomes an accomplice in a plot to assassinate the character of an individual or a group of people.
Manases and Emil wish online millennials, who seem one of the most vulnerable members of the society to misinformation campaigns, could soon distinguish news from fake news and legitimate news sites from counterfeit new sites, which are actually malicious blog sites.
An opinion shaped by false information is simply ironic in today’s age when everyone has unlimited access to the Web, which is an immense source of free, easily and instantly accessible references for checking facts.
Posting on social media an opinion manipulated by lies is irresponsible, especially when the welfare of the public is in question.
Manases and Emil, who both grew up in Tagdon, a tiny barangay in Barcelona, Sorsogon, encourage fellow millennials to validate posted stuff before assuming them as true.
They also recommend turning to newspapers, especially those that have been reporting for several years, as the real source of news.
“Their reporters talk face toface with people; they are real people, not anonymous posters of information that we later on learn fake,” Manases said.