Rappler shows how US online technology can manipulate PH public opinion

Try it yourself; google “Duterte war vs drugs.” After the Wikipedia entry there, the entry “Duterte war on drug news and updates” in Rappler’s website is high up in the google results. This leads not just to one article but to Rappler’s list (with the links to the articles themselves) of its articles on this topic, all containing the news site’s line that Duterte’s war on drugs has resulted in “thousands of innocent lives” lost.

No wonder US media, and even those in the West, believe the portrayal by Rappler head Maria Ressa and her Yellow allies that we are in the darkest of ages, with our streets littered with bodies killed by Duterte’s death squads. Why wouldn’t they, lazy journalists that many of them are, when they just rely on Rappler’s reportage, which is listed high in Google searches?

Google “Bongbong Marcos” and high up in the results list is the similar “Bongbong marcos news and updates” containing a list of Rappler articles on Ferdinand Marcos Jr.

Rappler hates me as I have exposed its lies, its fraudulent claim that it is being suppressed by government, and that it is being funded by US entities, patently in violation of our Constitution.

Rigoberto

Google “Rigoberto Tiglao,” and No. 1 in the search results is not my own website, rigobertotiglao.com but Rappler’s “Rigoberto Tiglao news and updates,” which contains a list of the news site’s arguments against me, its sorry attempts at debunking my reports, like one astonishingly claiming that “foreign funding of media isn’t a problem.” (If it isn’t, why did the Constitution expressly prohibit it?) What’s going on?

You see, crucial in getting information in the internet is the search engine, the biggest of which is now Google, followed by Bing, Yahoo, ask.com and the new one, duckduckgo. These search engines “crawl” the millions of websites to give you what is purportedly the most relevant and most useful websites (and their postings) on the topic you are researching on.

Google and other search engines purportedly each have what is called

How Rappler manipulates Google so you’ll read what it wants you to read an algorithm — a process or set of networks in the US internet world. rules to be followed — with as many This is because Google in its rankings as 200 factors to be considered to put a lot of weight on websites generate their search results. that older and big sites have established

One factor obviously is the number links to. Techies call these of people reading a particular “juice links.” For instance, internet post. For instance, my having linked to Rappler in recent column, “PhD thesis details its many reports on its head Ressa’s Ninoy Aquino’s collaboration with supposed plight (that she is being Communist Party/NPA” was ranked suppressed by government), gives it No. 1 if you google “communists a big boost in Google rankings. Two Aquino” since it was most probably of its board members, Manny Ayala read by more than 100,000 people, and Carlo Almendral, are veterans in given its over 40,000 likes. the US internet business and are very

But the number of viewers is not knowledgeable in search engine optimization, the only factor. In the case of my and are on top of Rappler’s column, the fact that the term “communist” efforts to rank high in search results. and “Aquino” were used in (Two board members, other than the column’s title boosted it in rankings Ressa, are Yellow stalwarts Fulgencio for relevancy. If I had instead titled Factoran, Cory Aquino’s environment my piece as “Opposition leader secretary, and Solita Monsod, aided insurgents,” its ranking would her economic planning chief.) have been most probably lower. But The rapid rise of Rappler in the these two factors are just among the digital world cannot be explained by purportedly 200 factors in Google’s the quality of its journalism, since its algorithm which, together with articles are mostly sketchy, amateurish each factor’s weighting, is kept secret, reports written mainly by straight-outof-college and continuously updated in reporters. Neither has it its hope to prevent manipulation established a reputation for investigaof its rankings — which is crucial since advertisers use the rankings to choose sites to advertise in.

Omidyar

One important factor that gives Rappler one huge advantage is the support huge US websites have been giving it, thanks to its two foreign funders, Omidyar Network and North Base Media — two entities that have wide reportage on Duterte’s anti-drug war, nor for high-quality opinion pieces.

Rather, it is the fact that its US funders, the neoliberal network in the US, have deliberately linked big US websites to Rappler, giving it a lot of juice links, that has boosted its articles’ rankings in the search engines.

In short, Rappler is using US internet technology to get you to read its biased articles as your main source of information about the country.

Algorithms

Furthermore, that Google’s algorithms can’t be easily “cracked” or manipulated, and that it revises these continuously in order to maintain its reputation has in fact created

“search engine optimization” (SEO) services. That is, it advises websites how to tweak their posts so that these appear high in search engines. Rappler very early on, because of the insistence of its US partners, had paid for expensive SEO services.

Amazingly, the writers of our 1987 Constitution had the foresight to retain the ban on foreigners in media. They couldn’t have imagined how foreigners could mold public opinion in our country in this globalized world through the internet.

Netizens and researchers who know Rappler’s anti-government bias and lies, would just skip their entries in google searches. But what about the rest of netizens? Their views would be molded by Rappler. Perhaps Ressa inadvertently disclosed Rappler’s strategy when she boasted two years ago, “It’s time to take back the internet.”

It is the fact that Google and US search engines can determine what people read in the internet — the main source of news and information for many countries — that convinced China to ban most of these within its territory, with Google closing as early as 2010. The biggest search engine there is the local Baidu.

The search engine Bing though, after being blocked for a day in January, continues to operate in China. I can understand why. For some reason, in the Philippine case, Bing doesn’t put Rappler high in its search results.

We should follow China’s precedent, or at least enforce the Constitution and close down Rappler.

And don’t use Google. Change your browser’s setting to make Microsoft-owned Bing or Yahoo as your default search engine.