MANILA: The Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility (CMFR) has warned Filipinos against a vast number of websites of dubious reliability that are widely quoted and used as sources of information by individuals who assume that whatever appears on the net must be true.
The “information” these websites provide is shared in different social media platforms, especially on Facebook, without verifying through other sources whether it is accurate or not, reported CMFR.
Majority of the websites claiming to be “news providers” base their stories on trending and viral posts in the internet, the report said.
One example is the Aug. 26 post from President Rodrigo Duterte’s campaign spokesperson Peter Laviña of a photo of a nine-year-old girl who was supposedly raped and murdered somewhere in the Philippines, said the news portal.
Laviña reportedly said in his post that “We haven’t heard condemning (sic) this brutal act from human rightists, bishops and ‘presstitutes’ who are derailing the government’s war against drugs and crime.” The posts garnered 4,600 likes in Laviña’s Timeline alone; shared 5,000 times by other Facebook users and was reported by online news sites.
The photo was a hit in that sense– only to be debunked by Filipino journalists Froilan Gallardo and Inday Espina-Varona, who found a link that revealed that the incident happened in Brazil, not the Philippines.
Clearly, the Laviña post was propaganda based on false information and meant to provoke anger against human rights activists, the religious, and members of the press critical of the government’s war on drugs, the CMFR report pointed out.
CMFR reportedly tried to track online trending news websites (Trend Titan, News Info Learn, Public Trending, News Today,Politiko.com among others) that carried Laviña’s post and found that the news article has not been removed or edited despite its having been proven to be false. “This raises questions on the credibility of these websites and the capacity of social media users who share them to identify what’s reliable and what’s not,” it said.
CMFR has come up with a list of websites that it believes are unreliable, based on the following criteria:
• No Identification. The “About Us,” “Contact Us” page of websites contains information about the site’s editorial team and staff, its address, telephone number, email address, its history, and other important information. A news website should be accountable for what is posted on its page, and it starts with identifying the people behind it, as well as how they can be contacted so they can be asked to explain errors posted in their sites, among others.
• News created from aggregated content that has not been verified. Content aggregators and curators scour the net for interesting content and share it with the Internet and social media community. Websites which aggregate and curate content nowadays do not only share content; they also create their own reports from other news sources. Most curators do not verify information prior to quoting a news article, hence the possibility that they’re spreading falsehood. Another practice is to pull out a factual report from mainstream news sources and to “spin it”—giving it an entirely new meaning.
• Article submission news sites. Article submission news websites aggregate content from people. Anyone is welcome to send articles, videos or photos to be posted on the website regardless of its being biased, and whether it’s a public relations piece or downright propaganda.
• News trending sites. Generally, these sites get their content from viral and trending posts in the internet.
Material from satirical websites, the content of which is often taken literally by those who access them, despite tag lines and disclaimers that proclaim that they are satirical, or are meant to spoof or make fun of ideas, events and individuals, are also often used and reposted as if the content is factually true, CMFR highlighted.
CMFR also compiled a list of some of the satirical websites in the Philippines:
• https://adobochronicles.com/
• http://eritastimes.com/
• https://sowhatsnews.wordpress.com/
• http://mosquitopress.tumblr.com/
• https://agilanews.wordpress.com/
The Asia Digital Marketing Association (ADMA) reporteldy noted that in 2015, the Philippines had the 2nd highest number of Internet users in Southeast Asia and was 6th in all of Asia with 44.2 million users. Ninety-four (94) percent of these numbers have social media accounts which they use to share news and information.
This 94 percent can be influential in shaping the international image of the Philippines among people from other countries who access social media. What’s as important, they also multiply possible errors among themselves and the rest of the Philippine Internet community by reposting and sharing flawed information, reported CMFR.
It is important to read and be critical of material posted in certain sites before actually liking or sharing them on Facebook or Twitter. Sharing misinformation through social media can actually lead to the dumbing down of large numbers of people, and contribute to the further deterioration of democratic discourse, the Center highlighted.
