00:00We've seen a lot of fake news circulating online, particularly in relation to Duterte's
00:06recent arrest. What form does this misinformation take in the Philippines and what channels
00:11are being abused?
00:13There are a lot of forms that the disinformation surrounding Duterte's arrest have taken.
00:18I mean, every single day since then, we have received tips from Filipinos on posts from
00:24social media that they want us to fact check. So a lot of them are text posts. We have also
00:30seen a number of videos that have been taken out of context. Yeah, so and a lot of fake
00:38quote cards as well that that is a staple in disinformation in the Philippines. It's
00:45an easy hundreds of thousands of Filipinos that the disinformation pieces or campaigns
00:51are reaching.
00:53And do we know if these misinformation campaigns are centralized or organized? Where are they
00:58coming from?
00:59I'm not so sure yet about how organized it is. I mean, I would say that there is probably
01:04some bit of organization there. Some of the claims have come from YouTube channels that
01:11we have fact checked in the past. And oftentimes, I mean, there are studies that prove that
01:16in the Philippines, disinformation is a business. But then there are also a lot of claims that,
01:22you know, appear to be have been shared or published by regular Filipinos. There have
01:27been some that have been that have come from elsewhere. I would say we still have to do
01:34a bit of digging to see if there there has been some foreign interference there.
01:39A recent survey from Social Weather Station reports that almost 60% of Filipinos surveyed
01:45recognize that misinformation was a problem on the internet. Is that an encouraging figure?
01:51And are people becoming more media literate?
01:53A lot of people now use the term fact checking and also fake news or misinformation, disinformation.
02:00So there is awareness, but how confident they are in detecting disinformation, misinformation,
02:09that's where the problem is. It's such a huge problem in the Philippines, like it affects
02:14whether or not people take vaccines or who they vote for in the elections. When it comes
02:19to media literacy, you don't immediately see the results, I would say. It takes quite
02:27some time for you to see if there's behavior change. But at least you equip students, you
02:33equip teachers with the skills to identify misinformation and disinformation, to think
02:41more critically about what they see online.
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