Black Propaganda in Social Media

Because the practice of black propaganda in social media induces manipulation and partisan politics, it must be countered by acknowledging fake social media accounts, preventing powerful people from controlling media, and knowing the manipulative methods that are used by propagandists.

        Countering black propaganda in social media must be practiced by people to lessen the spread of false information. First, by acknowledging the fake accounts used in social media, it can help raise awareness to people online. As people know, false messages and information from fake social media accounts can easily spread to the masses considering the fact that there are almost forty-seven million active Facebook users in the Philippines. According to Nyhan (2014) “It’s no surprise that interesting and unusual claims are often the most widely circulated articles on social media. Who wants to share boring stuff?” as people know, false information that are shared are usually more intriguing than those based on facts. Based on Silverman’s (2015) report, media reports are often sent out to the public without proper confirmation and once this happens, other media reporters share these as well basing sources from other media reports also. False information most of the time shocks or surprises people which adds appeal to the information that propagandists are trying to spread. People also tend to assume about issues without completely reading or understanding the information presented to them. Another factor on as to why false information spreads fast is because people talk about intriguing issues and as said earlier, false information are made to be intriguing to add appeal and emotion to those who are reading it.  Social media has been a known battlefield for people who argue about one’s views and perspectives about things. The lawlessness of social media encourages people to share opinions which trigger others to oppose whether it is about businesses, entertainment, or politics. Chaos can start instantly in social media especially when people start retaliating violently towards each other. People who are presented with false information are sometimes triggered by this especially if it is an intense or huge issue. What people have to remember as stated by Bilton (2014) is that when it comes to social media being a battleship, one should not engage even if it is difficult because people tend to call you names and say even worse once you react. It shows that social media can easily be used by propagandists to play with the emotions of people and to perpetuate conflict. Analysts in the Philippines are starting to see noticeable patterns in the way they spread information and with how these accounts are presented. As enumerated by Hofileña (2016) these patterns seen from fake accounts are those trolls that usually have no friends, they use profile photos of celebrities or influential people, they like similar social media pages such as Okay Dito and Ask Philippines, and that they have at least less than 50 friends. This clearly shows that these accounts have chances of having low credibility when it comes to sharing information. These fake accounts often post false information in political groups to sway the emotions of readers who are part of these groups. People should start realizing the power that they give these said accounts when they agree to the information that they show. The Filipino people should start exposing these “trolls” or fake social media accounts that are used by propagandists. Based on the researchers, from the forty-seven respondents who use social media websites, thirteen or 27% of them are neutral with seeing trolls but sixteen or 34% said they often see fake accounts and seventeen or 36.2% see these accounts very often. The researchers asked if the respondents have ever called out fake accounts or trolls in social media; twenty-six or 55.3% of these people said that they do not mind the trolls whenever they see them while six or 12.8% said that they do not exposed or call out these fake accounts. On the other hand, fifteen or 31.9% of the respondents call out these trolls on social media websites.  This quantitative data clearly shows that while even if most of the respondents do not mind the trolls, there are more people who actually expose the fake accounts to lessen the false information that is being spread to the masses or to stop them from harassing those who are defending one’s own opinion. The Filipinos have to know that by acknowledging and exposing these sock-puppets, trolls, and fake accounts, false information can be contained within these propagandists.

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