On fake news and social media in the country

by Professor Rom Feria, Manila Bulletin

This week, politicians’ attention is on the Pulse Asia survey on Filipinos’ take on fake news and its sources. One senator even wants the government to make social media companies accountable (see “risa-on-fake-news-govt-must-hold-social-media-networks-accountable”). If Meta refuses to go to the EU, appear in their chambers and be questioned, who the heck is the Philippines, why would they listen to PH congressmen and senators? What can the government do to address this problem? I have a couple of suggestions which can be done without the need for legislation.

First - start weaning away from these social media services, and instead use the official government websites for proper information dissemination. One of the possible reasons why government agencies use social media is because it is easy and convenient to post articles, unlike their websites. This should not even be an issue (what is the DICT doing?). That being said, government agencies can also tap the University of the Philippines Office of the Vice-President for Development’s IT Development Center for assistance and training.

Another possible reason is social media access is free (on mobile) or has preferential affordable packages for these online services. Why is this? PH telcos and social media companies have a deal - which always involves money (business first, as always, who cares about its impact on Philippine democracy!?). First thing to do is to compel PH telcos to provide the same preferential treatment to all government online services, everything under .gov.ph (and whilst they are at it, CHED and DepEd must also get .edu.ph included!). Imagine, it is free or more affordable to access social media sites, which promotes and spreads fake news, than sites that debunk these fake news. How is this fair? This anti-competitive behavior calls for an Philippine Competition Commission inquiry on why and how PH telcos selected these online services, whilst not providing the same for other less known social media services (e.g., how can Mastodon sites compete against them?) and online services or even locally-developed online services. And in the long term, a new law that enforces net neutrality (hello, madam senator)- that prevents the internet service providers to provide preferential treatment to any online service (including their own).

Finally, we hear about educating Filipinos to be more critical of what they read, hear and watch. However, to be very effective, this should have started at the elementary level (yeah, DepEd again!). Whilst fake news and misinformation cannot be eradicated, what can be done is to restrict its spread. Companies such as Meta (which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp), Alphabet (which owns YouTube and Google Search), Twitter, and ByteDance (which owns Tiktok) bombard users with fake news and misinformation because it provides better engagement, translating to more revenue - so despite what they say about cooperating with governments (Yes, not only the Philippines) to combat fake news, at the end of the day, profit still rules for them.

With the exception of a law on net neutrality, the government has options on how to mitigate the spread of fake news. The real question is “Is the government willing?” What can DICT do? Well, that is for another article.