THERE is more to the Freedom House finding on net manipulation than what Communications Secretary Martin Andanar is protesting about in the report.
Andanar had said there was no such thing as a “keyboard army” to boost support for President Duterte on social media. Duterte does not have to hire people to trick the public because he enjoyed the support of 16 million Filipinos who elected him, Andanar added.
The Freedom House, at www.freedomhouse.org, said it is an independent watchdog organization dedicated to the expansion of freedom and democracy around the world. The Freedom of the Net 2017 report it released titled “Manipulating social media to undermine democracy” said, “Online manipulation and disinformation tactics played an important role in elections in at least 18 countries over the past year, including the United States.”
“Disinformation tactics contributed to a seventh consecutive year of overall decline in internet freedom, as did a rise in disruptions to mobile internet service and increases in physical and technical attacks on human rights defenders and independent media.”
The Freedom House report did not center around Duterte’s so-called “keyboard army.” Its report said the world’s worst abuser of internet freedom was China, followed by Syria and Ethiopia.
It cited Venezuela, the Philippines, and Turkey as among 30 countries where governments were found to employ armies of “opinion shapers” to spread government views, drive particular agendas, and counter government critics on social media.
It said there were reports of former members of a “keyboard army” who said they could earn $10 (P500 at US$1:P50) per day operating fake social media accounts that supported Duterte or attacked his detractors in the run-up to his May 2016 elections. These “keyboard army” members have remained active and amplify “the impression of widespread support for his brutal crackdown on the drug trade.”
As to how governments are responding to this manipulation, the Freedom House report described as a “troubling trend” how governments in at least 14 countries actually restricted internet freedom. “Several democratic countries are debating the appropriate response to the fake news phenomenon and, more broadly, the responsibility of intermediaries such as Google, Facebook, and Twitter to remove fraudulent or illegal content,” it added.
The Philippines is one of those countries that try to use legal pressure to ensure that companies comply with local demands for censorship.
“More broadly, it will take considerable time, resources, and creativity to successfully combat content manipulation and restore trust in social media in a manner that does not undermine internet and media freedom,” the report said.
The impact of having false and manipulated data is that, in the end, people would not be able to trust the information they received from government, from media organizations. This lack of trust in institutions confuse people and leave them unable to make decisions affecting their lives.
This is the tragedy that the Freedom House report is telling us.