Upping the Ante

LATE last week, a politician ranted on a live Facebook session about trolls, allegedly maintained by city hall, who were attacking him. It was surreal.

On one hand, it was interesting to see the man, fairly or unfairly referred to as the “father of trolls,” squirm at the proposition that his group is getting a dose of its own medicine — trolling. For the politician to go online and preach about the ills of trolling is nothing short of a standup comedy. It was full of irony, not to mention, nonsequiturs.

I doubt if we can trust anyone seeking an elected government position who spends a lot of time lurking on social media platforms than engaging people in the real world setting. I’ve always found that sinister. Case in point: The Donald.

On the other hand, you have a mayor wannabe who has all the time in the world to be concerned with the social media buzz about him.

I’d like to point out that the man has been referred to as the social media director the President’s cyber-troops during the 2016 presidential campaign.

No less than a study of the University of Oxford found that the President’s group spent around P10 million to hire trolls who would spread propaganda for the then-presidential candidate and to target those who were against him.

The study, titled “Troops, trolls, and troublemakers: A global inventory of organized social media manipulation,” found that the poison of choice of trolls and their handlers involve “verbal abuse, hate speech, and discrimination against the values, beliefs or identity of a user or a group of users online.” Netizens were dumbfounded and couldn’t help but be silenced online.

I found the rant of the “social media director” last week to be ironic. Given what his group’s social media operators did in 2016, he should be the last entity to lash out at trolling.

I have always believed that negative or “black” campaigning will never prosper in a relatively small town of electorates. This scheme of deception online might have worked in the national scale as we have seen in the last national elections, but I doubt it would work in a more intimate and constricted space like Cagayan de Oro, a city where almost everyone is either related or at least knows everybody in government service.

It is what I love about this city. Although it has been included in the Top 10 list of the most competitive cities in Mindanao (ranked second), it has managed to maintain its “barriotic” character. While it has become a relative metropolis, one could still ask a neighbor for cooking oil, salt, and other mundane domestic needs.

In the end, what matters is how well our politicians have presented themselves in the real world because, by now, people have realized about the machinations in the social media platforms.

The city electorate cares much more about how these candidates are going to forge a better city than to listen to or read their mudslingings. That is why we have launched the “100% Politics” in our paper.

Through that democratic space, we do not write about what the candidates intend to do once in office but their group’s representatives do. Through this space, voters would see which group has the intellectual stamina and zest for public service.

One editor puts it this way: “If the groups cannot present and articulate their ideas, more so submit articles about what they stand for and about their platforms of government, then why are they running in the first place?”

I agree with that. So far, at least two groups have articulated their visions for the future of the city and the province based on my own scorecard. The others have contained their articles to praising the exploits of their individual candidates.

The city’s or the province’s experiences have shown us that it doesn’t take one individual but a collective effort of a group to realize their vision of development. It is elementary to deduce that without a clear vision, mission, and goal, these groups could be bereft of public service in mind but individual political ambition. In both characteristics, by the way, the city or the province lose.

Ever hopeful as I am, I am looking forward to more substantial and intellectually stimulating articles in this paper’s “100% Politics.” Anyway, there’s still time to make a turnaround and show their respective constituents what they’re made of.

I’ll be crossing my fingers and toes.

Raising the level of discourse

METHINKS the biggest losers this election season will be politicos who hired trolls to either promote them or slander their opponents — like in the 2016 national elections — and ultimately, the voting public.

I admit I was among the netizens who were dumbstruck by the attack of the trolls in 2016. It was something new. People were actually silenced by the bullying of trolls.

However, more and more people, actual social media users, are getting back at the trolls. As I have observed in some city-based Facebook groups, people are directly calling out trolls.

I based this observation on the threads of local group “Bantay Kagay-an.” I have been a member of the group even when it was called “Bangon Kagay-an.” It sprang up as a direct response to the devastation of Typhoon Sendong.

I must say first that it is unfortunate that this group has become a cesspool of trolls and its owner has not been forthright with his group members. The group is supposed to be an independent group.

The owner is running for a seat in the city council. He filed for a mayoral position but withdrew and posted a statement of sorts on his reason for his withdrawal to the mayoral race. He said he was waiving his candidacy to a person who supposedly bedazzled him in a brief encounter at a hotel lobby.

In its declaration of group rules, Sec. C: Values and Principles #2, it states that members must “be fair and balanced (in contrast to lap-dogging or doing a PR for somebody).” A cursory scan of the group posts now will show that it has since broken this rule.

The group page is being held hostage by a troll named “Jose Ma. Guerrero.” Since the filing of certificates of candidacy, this troll has regularly and consistently posted slanderous statements against the incumbent administration while bolstering how immaculately clean its principal is.

The funny thing is, real users are openly commenting against the troll’s ad hominem and non sequitur posts. Before, it was unthinkable that you would berate a troll online considering they are masked in anonymity. I guess real social media users have had enough of the toxic discourse if you call it that.

Other Facebook groups are even worse. Case in point is the group called “Ang Baruganan.” If you scan the posts in the group page, you will realize that no real users are commenting or posting on the page. It has been completely taken over by the trolls of all candidates of the city and the province.

It seemed that raising the level of public discourse is becoming less likely on social media. We have to face the reality that it is a practice in futility to be debating with a person cloaked in anonymity. There is no accountability and responsibility with what they post on social media.

Fortunately, my editor-in-chief thought of something that will benefit the electorate. He decided to give all the local political parties a space in the opinion pages of this paper — one day for every group each week. He named it “100% Politics.” This new sub-section within this paper’s opinion pages aims to raise the level of issue-based and fact-based public discourse on matters of politics and governance while the competing political groups keep with good taste and propriety, things that have been lost and which many people no longer value in other public discussion social media groups recently.

All the political groups have agreed and picked a day for their group columns. “100% Politics” started yesterday with city administrator Teodoro Sabuga-a Jr. writing for the incumbent administration (as expected, of course). In the coming days, we, the electorate, would witness a battle of ideas sans ad hominems and non-sequiturs.

The political groups should be able to present their respective development plans and reform agenda. They will have to convince the voting public who deserves to be supported and why the other groups are less deserving.

In the end, the voting public will benefit from this healthy but highly competitive public discourse.

Game of trolls

I ADMIT I was overwhelmed by how troll farms and their handlers took social media platforms in the 2016 national elections by storm. It was anything short of “shock and awe.” They dominated discussion boards, bullied thought leaders and mainstream news media into virtual silence, at least for a while.

But like my friends and colleagues, I was unprepared then. I didn’t know that there were people who would go to any lengths just so their principal would win. I didn’t know they would co-opt and sully free speech on the Internet. I admit I was naive.

With the mid-term elections just around the corner, we can be sure trolls will come out of the woodwork and go into hyperdrive again as they are wont to do. Even though its main handler has yet to come out (pun intended), we need to be ready for the expected coming onslaught of trolls in our social media accounts.

So, for those of you who have been hiding under a rock, this is how these vile creatures operate on social media platforms.

Trolls and their handlers employ a two-pronged approach against critical discussions — stifling dissent through fear and scripted messaging through fake news and black propaganda.

They stifle dissent through fear and intimidation. It got to a point where people were afraid to register their critical observations lest they would be the subject of a coordinated troll attack and be branded “delawan,” “adik” or terrorist protector. Obviously, there are people who have been exempt of this fear. Some of my colleague-friends fought toe-to-toe with these trolls. Still, a significant number of them just resigned not to engage the trolls.

They drown out public discussions with their slew of ad hominems, non-sequiturs, and other fallacious arguments that don’t have Latin names.

You may be tempted to dismiss these trolls as a bunch of uncouth and unloved creatures, most of them may well be but that’s not the point. Never make the mistake of underestimating these trolls. If there’s anything these trolls have been doing, it is anything but disorganized and uncalibrated.

My friend BenCyrus Ellorin has encapsulated their modus operandi on his wall quite brilliantly.

Step 1. Trolls would populate Cagayan de Oro social media groups–they have already begun. A case in point was when a Facebook user suddenly engaged my sarcastic comment on a thread at Bantay Kagay-an Facebook group.

I got this troll’s panty in a twist because I like the critical thinking La Viña brother over its principal. For context, this troll asked me to prove that I’m a real “real” Kagay-anon because it took my sarcastic quip as questioning the lineage of its principal in Cagayan de Oro.

I replied that I didn’t have to validate my lineage to something that is called a “Flick-g Spot.” It has since changed its handle to “Taga CDO Ka.”

When I first checked out the troll’s account, I found that it joined Facebook on Oct. 7, 2018. However, when I checked it again yesterday, it somehow turned the social media clock and now appears to have joined Facebook in July of 2015. It has 119 friends, all of whom (I should say “which”) have dubious names and equally suspicious profile photos.

Of the 12 pages it “liked,” eight were Cagayan de Oro-based and one page of a government official, Pompee La Viña.

Although I have responded to his attacks about me being an “impostor Kagay-anon,” it has nevertheless used my account as click-bait to create online noise.

Step 2. These trolls will create “click-bait” posts to generate traffic. This will then lead to the propagation of fake news.

So, despite my knowledge of trolls, I admit I fell right into its trap. I am now its click-bait to generate traffic since I am a legit netizen of Facebook with real people as friends. As my friends react to his ridiculous post on my thread in the group, this legitimizes its account, and by extension its dubious network of friends.

This troll can then start propagating fake news on the different Facebook groups of Cagayan de Oro City. Aside from Bantay Kagay-an, Taga CDO Ka has now joined Ang Baruganan Region 10, Ang Baruganan Philippines, and Iligan City “a walk to be remembered” v1.

According to Freedom House, the Philippines is among the other 30 countries across the globe that has deployed “manipulation to distort online information” (read: fake news).

These trolls don’t operate out of loyalty or dedication to their principals. Troll farms are big business.

A study by Chay Hofileña entitled “Fake accounts and manufactured reality on social media” shows these trolls are getting paid.

“In one page for commercial purposes, for example, repeated call-outs were made for ‘business partners’ who were required in 2015 to spend three to five hours daily on Facebook. Payment was supposed to range conservatively from P1,000 a day to P10,000 a month, with training provided,” Hofileña’s study reads in part.

There are even reports that some trolls even get paid as much as P2,000 to P3,000 a day just to copy-paste content. As Rappler has uncovered recently, trolls have uniform posts or comments on social media platforms.

“Different versions of what is supposed to be the one true fact can be manufactured, creating confusion and deep-seated schisms among groups who get to believe that their version of the truth is what is real and correct,” Hofileña’s study further reads.

So, how do we combat these trolls and their brand of twisted reality?

• Be critical with every post on social media. Use Google to vet, validate, and corroborate what is being asserted in a post or comment.
• Expose and oppose fake accounts, trolls, and bots. Bots are bits of code designed to mimic human users. They sound high-tech but believe me when I say these have been deployed in the country’s social media platforms as early as 2014.
• Actively reclaim your social media space by using apps that automatically label fake news and fake news websites as such. Let me plug the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines’ award-winning “fakeblok.”

Fakeblok is an extension app for Google Chrome web browsers and calls your attention when links from websites that tend to post fake news appear on your Facebook newsfeed. The app uses the database by the Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility.

Again, let us not fall for fake news and reclaim our social media space. Good day and good luck, Kagay-an.

Liberate your smartphones

“Paranoia is just reality on a finer scale.” -Strange Days (1995)

IT has been two full weeks since I unplugged my smartphone from the matrix of Mark Zuckerberg. I have deleted all Zuckerberg owned apps from my smartphone.

Now, I use my smartphone how it’s meant to be — for calls and SMS. Well, it would be hypocritical of me not to mention that I also use my smartphone as a calculator, for audio and video recording, and camera. However, I am now exclusively surfing the Internet, and accessing my social media accounts on my laptop.

It has been liberating.

The UK incorporated multinational auditing and consulting company, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited, monitor on mobile usage behavior revealed that at least 80 percent of Indonesians and Filipinos would have checked their phones within 15 minutes of waking up.

Having social media apps on your smartphone has altered the way we interact with our loved ones. I saw how intrusive it has been to our family time. I wanted to delete the apps even before the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica data breach scandal hogged the headlines.

But like most Filipinos, I was simply hooked on it.

A virtual friend — meaning, we haven’t met personally, only on Facebook — asked me last month what would it be like to disengage from social media platforms. I answered that it wouldn’t really change anything except that we’ll have to talk face to face next time without it.

However, the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica scandal was the last straw. When I discussed it with my real-time friends, most of them were not concerned at the slightest.

They said they were not concerned because they are careful with what they post. What they don’t get is that it is a continuing process. It doesn’t matter if you have been conscientious in what you do share on your Facebook wall. The app mines your account for data anyway. By the way, it also mines the data of all the friends on your account.

According to Avaaz, an Internet rights group, there have been 1,175,870 Filipinos whose data have been breached in the wake of the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica scandal. Facebook, itself, admitted that the Philippines had the second most number of accounts compromised in the data breach scandal.

Let’s go to the next best thing to texting. Since the Philippines has been the texting capital of the world, Facebook Messenger took the country by storm. You didn’t even need load because Zuckerberg has made a free data platform.

However, do you think your chats on Facebook Messenger are private? Last Thursday, Facebook confirmed that its staff uses automated tools to scan Messenger chats for malware links and child porn images. A Facebook moderator can review any messages that are flagged by users or the automated systems they have put in place.

Apparently, the reason why Zuckerberg can allow Facebook to be free is that its users are the product. The users’ data are the commodity. That may not sound much to you but in the hands of political manipulators and “thought leaders,” it is a gold mine.

You are responsible for what you post, that’s a given. However, if your user data are mined, these companies can have your virtual profile. They will know what usually do in a day, what brand of coffee you prefer, what bank you trust, and many other personal details of your life.

I am not quitting Facebook. I just took it off my smartphone so Zuckerberg couldn’t sell my and my friends’ user data to the highest bidder. But before I did that, I downloaded the data I’ve shared with Facebook since I joined it.

What I got was the history of everything I’ve done on Facebook, such as likes and comments on posts, use of apps and searches. The download also contained my profile, messages, list of friends, ads I’ve clicked on, and IP addresses I’ve used to connect to Facebook.

I must tell you, the download gave me a pretty good picture — a scary one at that— of what Facebook has on me.

I have since deleted all the contact details of my friends on my Facebook account. I can only hope my friends would do the same with my contact details on their Facebook accounts.

Now, because I have to reboot my laptop every time I access Facebook, my mornings are ultimately better. I pay more attention to real-time conversations. I don’t stumble or step into people’s toes in the street anymore.

Try it. It’s liberating.

Ms. Informed

A WEEK ago, this administration’s (mis) communicators dished out a flurry of faux pas. They now appear to be the comedy piñata that keeps on giving and I, a certified self-confessed online heckler, am enjoying every bit of it.

So, the comedy week started with an intra-office memo written by Presidential Communication Operations Office assistant secretary Margaux Uson, which she then posted on her Facebook page.

Now, I’ve always believed in content over form. Uson’s letter has neither of those. It had bad grammar, spelling included. Worse, the content and message of the memo were uninformed (read: ignorant).

Uson wanted to “reclassify” online news organization Rappler as a “social media” so the news outfit would be under her purview.

It is clearly written and guaranteed in our 1987 Constitution that government shall not abridge the people’s freedom of expression and by axiomatic extension, the people’s right to a free press.

I say Rappler is doing its watchdog role and this administration cannot stand it.

A few minutes after Uson posted her memo, UP communications professor Danilo Arao posted the memo with his corrections. Let’s just say, for humanitarian reasons, that the memo looked like a Christmas tree — it was adorned with a liberal amount of red ink.

As if to explain her erroneous memo, Uson compared Rappler to bloggers Mindavote. Her premise is that because of Rappler, like Mindavote, has no print and broadcast outputs is not a news media but a social media. For her information, social media are websites and applications that enable users to create and share content or to participate in social networking. Rappler, like most newsrooms, have field reporters and they do not publish unvetted information.

Sure, they’ve had some “kuryente” stories before but it retracts and issues an erratum right after. Now, how many Facebook users or Youtubers have you seen issue an erratum for erroneous or libelous posts?

The next office to entertain us with their impeccable command of the English language was the Asean 2017 National Organizing Committee.

A tarpaulin to supposedly welcome Southeast Asian delegates misspelled the name of its own country! The tarp reads: “Asean 50 Philippines: Welcome to the Philppines! Asean delegates.”

The NOC has since ordered the removal of the embarrassing tarps.

In a statement, lawyer Michel Kristian Ablan, assistant secretary for PCOO’s policy and legislative affairs, said the tarps “did not conform to the approved final artwork.”

He then passed the buck to Department of Interior and Local Government-National Capital Region.

“The DILG NCR already issued a statement (that) clarified that it was issued by them, it was posted by them, and they already took them down and that they are replacing those posters with (the) correct spelling of the country Philippines,” Ablan added.

As I was scanning my Facebook newsfeed the morning after, I saw that, as usual, the apologists and fanatics of this administration did not get the point about the erroneous Asean tarps.

1. Online trolls were quick to quip that the dilawans will surely use this latest faux pas and pin it on Digong Dada. If you look closely at the humorous reposting of the photo of the tarps, nobody is blaming their lord and savior. All of us merely pointed out how embarrassing the tarp is considering it has misspelled the name of our own country.
2. The Asean tarps were bought and paid for with taxpayers’ money. Our money. For the information of these online trolls, the budget allotted for #Asean50 is about P15 BILLION (all caps mine).
3. Some trolls also pointing out the supposed “crab mentality” of those who critiqued the tarps. Do yourselves a favor and Google what that idiom really means so you’ll not appear stupid. Well, you are but that’s not the point.
4. Trolls rebut that those who pointed out the mistake are nitpicking and are “nagmamagaling.” Again, and I cannot stress this enough, for P15 billion, you can’t even hire a decent proofreader?
5. When you use the copout: “Well, that’s my opinion. Respect it.” We are not discussing opinions here. It’s spelling-grammar.

Yes, you have the right to your opinion. That’s freedom of expression. But respecting and appreciating your opinion is not part of that freedom. I’m well within my rights to express to tell you your opinion is ludicrous.