How to spot fake news
TELLING THE DIFFERENCE: COURSES FOR ONLINE-ADDICTED FILIPINOS Duterte’s presidency is known to employ social media trolls who sing his praises.
roomful of Filipino police and soldiers stare intently at headlines projected on a screen. They are the latest “students” of a “get to know what is fake news” boot camp aimed at fighting the scourge.
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?” asks class teacher Rowena Paraan, a veteran journalist with the top Philippine TV network ABS-CBN, as she stands in a sweltering gym on a military base.
Her lesson is part of the channel’s long-running citizen journalism training programme, which, since late 2016, has shown some 25 000 people how to fight the fake news spike since President Rodrigo Duterte’s rise.
The first headline zeroes in on the nation’s struggle against the infamous 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 paces 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 the news website Rappler, known for battling the president over his brutal antidrugs 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 says the risk of being manipulated has serious consequences.
“[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 says about Duterte’s 2016 election.
Duterte’s camp has repeatedly been accused of employing online trolls to sing his praises and to savage dissenters with fierce words or even threats.
Some of Duterte’s inner circle have been caught passing on false information, including his onetime campaign spokesperson.
His government has been largely quiet on the classes, but has spoken against a Bill in Congress that would penalise public officials who spread fake news.
One of Paraan’s pet examples of pro-Duterte fake news is the US space agency Nasa who allegedly recognised him as “the best president in the solar system”. It was shared more than 6 500 times on Facebook.
“Hello? Did they canvass Mars, Pluto and other places?” Paraan asks with mock seriousness.
Among the nearly three dozen police and soldiers in class is officer Bernadette Leander, who came because she has already tangled with fake news at work.
After a rumour circulated on social media that Duterte had doubled all police officers’ salaries, the local force was deluged with inquiries from potential recruits.
“People started asking us about it. We told them it wasn’t true,” Leander, who works in public affairs, told AFP.
“We had to conduct an information campaign [against it].”
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.
With about 10 million Filipinos living abroad, the size of the diaspora goes some way towards explaining the country’s fondness for social media.
“We always want to connect to our family members and friends from far away, and one way to do that is through social media,” said Rica Oquias, managing director of Manila digital marketing firm M2Social. – AFP