Media bootcamp helps Filipinos fight fake news
BALER: Filipino police and soldiers stare intently at headlines projected on a screen, making them the latest students of a media bootcamp aimed at fighting their nation’s flood of fake news.
Scores of people ranging from girl scouts to government workers have already received the same innovative instruction in the Philippines, ranked the world’s top user of social media.
“Which one is real?” asked class teacher Rowena Paraan, a veteran journalist with top Philippine TV network ABS-CBN.
Her lesson is part of the channel’s long-running citizen journalism training programme, which, since late 2016, had shown some 25,000 people how to fight the fake news spike that accompanied President Rodrigo Duterte’s rise.
The first headline zeroed in on the nation’s struggle against jihadists on its southern islands: “Donald Trump sends 5,000 troops to fight Abu Sayyaf.”
It’s fake and several students quickly shoot up their hands to say so. But subsequent headlines get harder and harder until the only sound is Paraan’s footsteps as she paced among the students.
The training, which is delivered free-of-charge to groups who request it, provides an overview of how fake news works as well as techniques to spot and debunk it.
It is one of several similar efforts that have sprouted up since Duterte’s election, including one run by news website Rappler, known for battling with the president over his brutal drugs war.
Formats and content vary, but generally the classes are run by journalists teaching social media-obsessed youth how not to get fooled online.
Paraan said the risk of being manipulated had serious consequences.
“It (fake news) generated more support for the president... either it encouraged you to hate the president’s enemies or urged you to support the president,” Paraan said, referring to Duterte’s 2016 election.
Duterte’s camp had repeatedly been accused of employing online trolls to sing his praises and savage dissenters with fierce words or even threats.
One of the reasons the Philippines is a key battleground for fake news is the sheer volume of its online activity.
According to consultancy We Are Social, the average Filipino spends nearly four hours per day on social media, the most in the world. Facebook said the Philippines – home to 106 million people — has 69 million users, the sixth-largest country group.
Paraan said this arrangement was potentially fertile ground for fake news because users only saw headlines and would need to buy data to click to read a full story, key to evaluating its authenticity.