00:00The thing about FIMI, you know that you're coming from outside but you don't know whether
00:04it's operated or the source is an outside state or a local paying an outside provider.
00:13That's the thing that it's very hard to distinguish because if I was a local politician and I hired
00:20a company in India, you'd have these trolls coming from the outside and that can be traced
00:28that it's coming from the outside, but who's behind it, it's hard to say.
00:31Is it coming from a private entity or a state entity?
00:37That's an example of information laundering where you can't really trace the source
00:41kasi ang dami ng pinagdaanan.
00:42Correct.
00:43And then at the end, believable yung information kasi you don't really know it came from this
00:48source.
00:49Yes, except for sometimes it's easy enough because the script is the same.
00:53You don't really need to be an expert.
00:58You decided to start teaching fact-checking as kind of an antidote to disinformation or
01:09as a response to disinformation in 2017, kind of as a reaction then from what you observed
01:15in 2016 during the election.
01:17It became kind of a tactic in the Philippines but also in the U.S. at that time.
01:22Did it influence the outcome of elections?
01:25In a way, it influenced the outcome because there was a lot of information that was outside
01:32the normal channels of media and the usual trusted media.
01:40And people were starting to pick this up.
01:42You could see Facebook pages being created solely to bring out misinformation or disinformation.
01:51And it became so rampant because they were not aware that it could be done and they still
01:58had trust in whatever they could read on the internet.
02:01It just spiraled into a lot of disinformation that was being shared by ordinary citizens who
02:08could not detect that this was false information.
02:11And so part of what we needed to do was to create an awareness that this exists.
02:18Because I think that was the first level of the fight to help people understand that not
02:24everything you read is true.
02:27I want to talk about FIMI now.
02:30Maybe you can tell us a little bit about the origins of that term.
02:34Because it might not be familiar to everybody.
02:36Then how it's relevant now to our region.
02:41FIMI is Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference.
02:46So it basically means that there are external influences or influence operators outside the country.
02:55It could be a state operation or it could be individuals or private citizens that are not part.
03:04Basically, it's external sources of disinformation.
03:10And that it's coordinated.
03:14So it's a campaign.
03:15It's different from an influence operator who's, let's say, a blogger.
03:18So that blogger can have their own causes of disinformation.
03:26But this one is bigger because it's a campaign among either several bloggers outside the country
03:35or really institutions that either produce inauthentic, coordinated disinformation
03:43or have influencers, individual influencers that want to manipulate the local public sphere.
03:51Of course, disinformation has evolved, no?
03:54So these days, to what extent is disinformation FIMI?
04:00That's hard to say to what extent.
04:02Like to put a percentage or number on it.
04:05It's very difficult.
04:07Is it greater now than before?
04:08With the start of social media, I think it started growing also.
04:12They saw several platforms in which they could now influence domestic politics.
04:19Not just in this country, but in several.
04:21So you have those with the capital and those with the machinery and technology
04:27that can now influence domestic politics in smaller, more developing economies.
04:35And I think that's why FIMI is something that is of danger because you don't really need that much capital.
04:46You don't even need that much, that many people to conduct disinformation.
04:52So yes, it's been growing, I think.
04:55And it's taking on different hues depending on what issues are, I think, hot at the moment.
05:06Kaya ko rin tinanong kung, you know, to what extent or is it growing, et cetera.
05:12Kasi we've had many, many conversations about disinformation for the past decade.
05:21Pero parang ngayon lang pinag-uusapan yung foreign aspect of it.
05:25Is it because the scale of it has increased or it's always been there kasi there are now efforts pinpointing it as foreign?
05:35Or are we realizing now with more research, et cetera, that a lot of the disinformation from the very start was actually FIMI?
05:42Right. I think it's because of that greater awareness.
05:47In the same way that there was very little awareness about disinformation in the early days, and now there's a lot of awareness.
05:56We're focusing now on who are the actors behind the disinformation.
06:00And that's why that information is growing among those combating disinformation.
06:07It's being talked about openly so that people, again, to create an awareness that it's beyond our shores, that the problem doesn't stop, you know, in just the Philippines alone.
06:19And also because of, I think, the European Union had started really talking about it because they saw a big influx of foreign influence operators during the Ukraine war.
06:33And so because of their own findings, they started, you know, we started also studying it locally, which was not really a focus of disinformation studies before, at least in Asia.
06:48And FIMI itself was kind of coined by EU, right?
06:51Yes. It was coined by them, but also the knowledge of how they operate was also plotted by them.
06:59And it helped the local studies to analyze our own problems here.
07:04So I think that's why there's a greater awareness and also why we're only talking about it now, even if it probably existed well into 2016 or even earlier, much earlier.
07:16We can differentiate what is coming from local troll farms and FIMI by simply looking at where the messages are being repeated.
07:27So, for example, a journalist is being attacked on Facebook.
07:31It's the same message, but the Facebook users are, you know, they have more or less, you see their names.
07:45So it could be authentic, paid trolls.
07:50With FIMI, there's the same message, but mostly coming from, it's very hard to detect what countries they're coming from.
08:03So also, many times, at least you see on TikTok and Facebook, the names are probably its Chinese characters.
08:13Sometimes they come out as consonants because the original, you don't, it doesn't pick up on the platform.
08:20But that's enough to conclude.
08:22That's enough to conclude that at least from a basic non-technology way of tracking, you could say that these are coming from outside.
08:32The thing about FIMI, you know that you're coming from outside, but you don't know whether it's operated or the source is an outside state or a local paying an outside provider.
08:46That's the thing that it's very hard to distinguish.
08:50Because if I was a local politician and I hired a company in India, you'd have, you know, you'd have these trolls coming from the outside.
09:04That can be traced that it's coming from the outside, but who's behind it, it's hard to say.
09:10That's where I think you will really need a collaboration with the platforms to trace the source.
09:20Is it coming from a private entity or a state entity?
09:24That's where you need the technology that's beyond a normal fact checker like myself.
09:29That's an example of information laundering where you can't really trace the source kasi ang dami ng pinagdaanan.
09:35Correct.
09:35And then at the end, parang may pagka-believability, believable yung information kasi you don't really know it came from this source.
09:44Yes, except for sometimes it's easy enough because the script is the same.
09:48Right?
09:49Then at least in that sense, you don't really need to be an expert.
09:56Are we gaining ground in terms of the truth?
09:58Sabi niyo, 90% awareness, no?
10:00But what needs to happen with this awareness?
10:02Well, I think what should be happening is if you are going to use the same technology to fight disinformation,
10:12then it is for the positive, like to what we call pre-bunking, like to give out the correct information
10:21or to have a rapid response when you are being attacked by disinformation.
10:26And basically, that's using the same technology that disinformers use, but to a positive and in a good way.
10:36It's really a matter of who is using it and for what purpose.
10:40I think that those who want to stay clean in the political sphere, but at the same time not be naive,
10:49then use it in the proper way.
10:51I think that the other way.
10:56Well, thank you.
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