The spokesman doth protest too much

ISTOLE the head of the column from the Bard and apologies should be made. But the line from Hamlet, indeed, characterizes the unnecessary complaints of Mr. Roque over Facebook’s choice of fact-checkers, Philippine context. Facebook made its choice in Vera Files and Rappler.

Let it be. Let it go, Mr. Roque. I don’t do Facebook and I don’t have a single social media account. I am too old, too Luddite and too promdi to engage in such things. I can’t even Google yellow corn prices in Isabela at the moment; these are things you have to get from the regular biyaheros. So, I don’t have a skin in the game over what Facebook does and decides on. But there are some facts that Mr. Roque should realize before he protests—and protests too much—over Facebook’s choice of fact-checkers.

Technology giants, such as Facebook, represent impersonality and agnosticism at its highest. There is always a code, an algorithm that underpins major decisions that are, in principle, free of biases. When Facebook did what it did in the Philippine context, which was to select fact-checkers that would do the job well and without fear or favor in the Philippine setting, it asked its coders and programmers to select the best media-oriented institutions in our country that would purge Facebook accounts suspected of peddling fake news and propaganda.

Choices based not much on human discretion but on algorithm.

The programs they ran said “Rappler” and “Vera Files.” No one dares veto the recommendations of the programs and the codes, not even Mr. Zuckerberg. That was it. Those that live on the web die on the web. Mr. Roque should not forget this fundamental fact of Ronquillo A4