Information Dystopia and Philippine Democracy: Protecting the Public Sphere from Disinformation
Top Insights
Internews (2021), 98 pp.
"The Philippines is one of the first countries where the potential for online disinformation threats to undermine democratic processes, especially during elections, was noticed [...] This report takes a deep look at an online survey that Internews conducted, explores the cultural and emotional dimensions of disinformation and how they form part of the broader political transformations taking place in the Philippines, examines how the Philippine disinformation ecosystem fits into the regional landscape, looks into financial incentives and legislation, and formulates a set of strategic and programmatic recommendations to better tackle the issue of disinformation in the Philippines." (https://internews.org)
I. MEDIA AND DISINFORMATION IN THE PHILIPPINES: TRENDS, PERCEPTIONS, AND CHALLENGES, 8
1 Media consumption, 12
2 Not the media, 22
3 Perceptions of the news media, 28
4 Disinformation, 42
5 COVID-19, 62
II. AFTER DISINFORMATION: THREE EXPERIMENTS IN DEMOCRATIC RENEWAL IN THE PHILIPPINES AND AROUND THE WORLD, 76
1 Increased value of emotional currencies in politics, 76
2 Growing demands for sites of listening, 79
3 Creating attempts to filter disinformation with democratic deliberation, 81
III. DISINFORMATION AT A TURNING POINT: SPOTLIGHT ON THE PHILIPPINES, 85
1 Many disinformation producers are financially motivated with little ideological investment, 87
2 We need to develop norms and regulatory frameworks on political marketing, 88
3 We need more transparency mechanisms in our engagement with tech companies, 89
4 We need to hold our allies accountable, 89
5 We need to examine intersections of disinformation and hate speech. We need to watch out for fake news that could lead to escalation to racial violence, as we have seen in our neighboring countries, 90
6 We need to create sustainable intersectoral and interdisciplinary alliances where individuals contribute diverse specialized knowledge to tackle different dimensions of information pollution, 90
Conclusion 91
References, 92
Strategic and Programmatic Recommendations, 94
1 Media consumption, 12
2 Not the media, 22
3 Perceptions of the news media, 28
4 Disinformation, 42
5 COVID-19, 62
II. AFTER DISINFORMATION: THREE EXPERIMENTS IN DEMOCRATIC RENEWAL IN THE PHILIPPINES AND AROUND THE WORLD, 76
1 Increased value of emotional currencies in politics, 76
2 Growing demands for sites of listening, 79
3 Creating attempts to filter disinformation with democratic deliberation, 81
III. DISINFORMATION AT A TURNING POINT: SPOTLIGHT ON THE PHILIPPINES, 85
1 Many disinformation producers are financially motivated with little ideological investment, 87
2 We need to develop norms and regulatory frameworks on political marketing, 88
3 We need more transparency mechanisms in our engagement with tech companies, 89
4 We need to hold our allies accountable, 89
5 We need to examine intersections of disinformation and hate speech. We need to watch out for fake news that could lead to escalation to racial violence, as we have seen in our neighboring countries, 90
6 We need to create sustainable intersectoral and interdisciplinary alliances where individuals contribute diverse specialized knowledge to tackle different dimensions of information pollution, 90
Conclusion 91
References, 92
Strategic and Programmatic Recommendations, 94
