How candidates fight ‘highly scientific’ trolls, fake news

MANIPULATIONS After the campaign season began, this photo of former Interior Secretary Mar Roxas drinking water with his cupped hand, posted on the Department of the Interior and Local Government’s Twitter account in April 2015, was altered to show he was drinking from a plate. Reelectionist Sen. Grace Poe, meanwhile, became the subject of false reports that she intended to ban Facebook. —CONTRIBUTED PHOTO/ RICHARD A. REYES

MANILA, Philippines — Can fake news affect a candidate’s chances in the coming elections?

It probably depends on how candidates and their staff handle the rumors and misinformation that have gone on overdrive on social media now that the May 13 elections are days away.

For consistent survey front-runner Sen. Grace Poe, trolls and fake news are a given, with vicious claims on social media apparently meant to trim her chances at reelection and advance those of her rival.

“As a policy,” Poe’s camp does not engage trolls, said Jing Panganiban-Mendoza, the senator’s social media head.

Trolls, Mendoza said, were easy to spot as their accounts have little activity that are not politically related. The team may report certain posts, but generally they are ignored.

“We have always believed in positive campaigning so we devote our efforts into highlighting the good characteristics of our candidate. We have a very good principal with accomplishments and advocacies so we focus our efforts on getting her message to the public,” Mendoza explained.

Fortunately, she said, people and social media organizations are now more discerning about fake news, with “social media organizations starting to strengthen their measures against fake news.”

One Google away

For Otso Diretso campaign manager Sen. Francis Pangilinan, countering the barrage of fake news belittling the accomplishments of opposition candidates means disseminating their track record widely.

Some of the disinformation come from President Rodrigo Duterte himself, acknowledged Otso Diretso senatorial candidate Sen. Bam Aquino, whom the President described as having done nothing during his years in the Senate.

“But it’s easy to look for the truth. It’s only one Google search away or it could be found on the Senate website,” Aquino said. “My track record is there.”

Unlike other candidates, the senatorial candidates of the ruling PDP-Laban have not fallen prey to “fake news” regarding their stand on various campaign issues, said the party’s spokesperson, Ronwald Munsayac.

What they had experienced, Munsayac said, was the spread of false information that local officials and ward leaders were not supporting their five-member slate.

Selective response

“We have anticipated this. So we came up with a system in our headquarters that allows us to validate the ‘fake news’ or disinformation sent to our candidates,” he said.

“Our party also organized local councils, whose members are not politicians, to validate and counter the wrong information,” he added.

Being selective on what to counter also helps, Munsayac said. “What we do is check how many ‘likes’ or ‘shares’ (the fake news post have) garnered. If it’s just a few, we just ignore them.”

“But if it is substantial, the PDP-Laban has its own communications team (that then) counters the disinformation from our rivals,” Munsayac said.

Take it from Goebbels

According to political analyst Victor Andres Manhit, founder and managing director of advisory and research consultancy group Stratbase, it is difficult to measure the extent of influence of fake news on political campaigns despite its ability to sustain interest on issues because of its wide reach.

Like Paul Joseph Goebbels, Nazi Germany’s minister of propaganda, architects of social media campaigns believe that “(i)f you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.”

“You can’t tell the public to be more educated or more vigilant (against fake news) because for them, this (social media) is entertainment after a hard day’s work,” he said.

Manhit said architects of network disinformation weaponize social media by injecting a narrative that shapes minds because Filipinos actually did not have established political beliefs.

He noted that methods used by architects of disinformation on social media, particularly on Facebook, were “highly scientific.”

Microtargeting

“I believe what’s happening is microtargeting. Without us knowing it, we’re being profiled.  Maybe some (of the) data are being shared in our pages without us knowing that they are coming from trolls or so-called social media warriors,” he explained, adding that social media is then weaponized.

Microtargeting is originally a marketing strategy that uses consumer data and demographics to predict the purchasing behavior of like-minded people and to influence their behavior through focused advertising.

Manhit said the use of social media could be a game-changer. “It can take away votes from you or it can help strengthen the public image that you are building through traditional media, such as political advertisements, radio coverage, TV news coverage.”

He cited findings by researchers from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and the University of Leeds on the existence of a network of digital workers who were designing political disinformation campaigns and creating fake news—for a price.

The in-depth report “Architects of Networked Disinformation: Behind the Scenes of Troll Accounts and Fake News Production in the Philippines” was released in February last year. It was coauthored by Jonathan Corpus Ong, UMass Amherst associate professor of communication, and Jason Cabañes, University of Leeds international communication lecturer.

Digital influencers

The report said elite advertising and public relations strategists were tapped by politicians to set up a disinformation campaign, with digital influencers under them “translat(ing) campaign messages into viral posts,” and key opinion leaders carrying the campaign’s core message.

Community-level fake account operators are then subcontracted by the chief architects or a politician’s chief of staff to “amplify reach and create illusions of engagement. This bottom tier are basically volunteers unlike their bosses who are paid very well.

The political analyst said candidates could utilize social media on the last leg of the campaign.

Manhit explained: “The most important is (what’s) on top of mind among voters on May 12, so when they go to the polls on May 13, they vote for that politician whose image (in their mind) is positive.”

Sara: No impact on results

The Hugpong ng Pagbabago (HnP) senatorial slate agreed with Manhit’s observation, and said “fake news and trolls have little to no impact at all” on election results.

“The viciousness and level of rabidity streaming from the trolls proved no match to the campaign strategy we have employed for our candidates,” said Sara Duterte-Carpio, HnP campaign manager and Davao city mayor.

“Most of our senatorial candidates dominate the surveys despite the relentless destructive campaigning launched against them by their opponents aided by the trolls, and we credit this to our approach of positive campaigning,” she said.

“Fortunately most of the supporters of President Duterte and the administration backed us and, in a way, they took care of trolls and fake news. These supporters, with their internet intelligence and impeccable online mining skills, exposed the lies, the fake news, the trolls. We are truly happy we have them on our side.” —With a report from Marlon Ramos