Rappler recently published a series about truth and social media where they criticized the growing trend of blogs and non-established media sources as endangering our democracy.
Maria Ressa and her team started the series with “Propaganda War – Weaponizing the Internet“.
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In this post, Ressa argues that the Philippines socio political discourse is now over-run by paid trolls, and liars who “poison the well”. She argues that many of the websites being shared in social media are spreading lies and disinformation. She gives multiple examples of instances where certain websites spread disinformation to the public. I agree with her in this that there are shady websites and facebook pages out there who spread wrong or sometimes fabricated information. Ressa and her team however, do not stop there. They further argued, without proof, that the rise in social media bots and fake facebook and twitter account is state sponsored.
Ressa and her team used a very sneaky misdirection in this thread. First, establish plausible deniability (“it is not clear whether these accounts..are working with official government channels…). Second, highlight a possible link to a sinister plot (“a fanatic defense of Duterte portrayed as a father of the nation”) Third, make the connection (“this possible consolidation of Duterte campaign machinery with state communications channels”). Fourth, give an irrelevant example (“We only need to look at China”). In 4 sentences, Rappler went from there is no evidence of state sponsored trolling to the Philippines is like China which censors the internet, controls the content of the internet and has proven social media trolls.
In her second post “How Facebook algorithms impact democracy” Ressa and her team argue that the online bots and fake websites feed the Facebook algorithms that reinforce our social media echo chamber. This too they say is a danger to democracy.
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In this post, Ressa and her team are just mainly complaining about how Facebook algorithm is allowing Mocha Uson to beat them in social media engagement. They say that the online bots and trolls they talked about in their first post, help Mocha reach a significant audience. This they say is dangerous because Mocha is not a traditional journalist bound by journalistic standards.
Ressa argues that the combination of Mocha and her tendency to launch ad hominem accusations and the rise of online trolls is a danger to Philippine democracy. They argue that this combination further speeds up the spread of disinformation in social media. Ressa and her team again seem to think that disinformation and half truths is an exclusive sin of the non-traditional media. Take at look at this quote from this post:
Take note of Ressa’s conclusion: “That didn’t happen largely because of a public outcry that ridiculed her lack of knowledge.” She seem to have forgotten this news piece from her own website:
They continue to argue that due to the rise in vitriol in political discourse in social media, some people are forced to remain silent and just not share their opinion leading to a “spiral of silence”. What Ressa and her team forget, and I am surprised about this considering the fact that they preach democracy a lot, is the fact that truly democratic systems work like the Facebook algorithm they criticize. A truly democratic system allows for all ideas to be shared – the good, the bad, the truth and the lies. A truly democratic system allows for lies to be told and challenged. A truly democratic system allows for people to chose to remain silent. What Ressa and her team forget is the fact that a truly democratic system that promotes free speech is like a market place. It is noisy, chaotic and you will get dirty. Ressa and her team have grown too comfortable in the comfort of their editorial desks and news rooms that they think they are the vanguards of democracy and free speech. They are the self appointed judge and juror on the value our social media contribution has on political discourse.
Ressa and her team, in their misguided appeal to promote democracy to improve public discourse, forgot about the most important essence of democracy – free speech. I even argue that their impassioned appeal for “decency”, “restraint” and “intellectual analysis” in social media and the blogosphere is a form of censorship. They promote the whole idea of “I am offended by your comments”. This claim to offence is a type of veto against free speech and this is exactly what Ressa and the entire Rappler team is asking from us.
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