The challenges of disinformation
Scientists have long discovered that light travels faster than sound. This discovery has been put to good use as the foundation of many subsequent discoveries. Recently, however, scholars found a sad truth: that lies travel faster than truth. According to scholars from a known US University, false news spreads more rapidly on the social media network than real news does – and by a substantial margin.
This reality puts the 2022 elections at risk. Voters, who are supposed to base their decision on choosing their candidates, are bombarded with fake news and disinformation. Even before the start of the campaign period, election propaganda has already proliferated on social media platforms. The challenge we face with this propaganda is not the outright lies that an ordinary voter can easily detect. The problem is that lies are embedded in a seemingly factual narration of an event that lends credibility to the story. What is troublesome is that disinformation can greatly influence the choice of the voters who do not have access to credible information. Even voters who can fact-check a piece of information may be misled if no extra effort to validate the information is made.
COMELEC recently issued Resolution No. 10730, which provides the rules and regulations on political advertisements. It includes the rules on political advertisements in social media as it explicitly allows the use of social media platforms subject to prescribed regulations.The rules require each registered political party/coalition and candidate to register the website name and web address of all platform-verified official accounts, websites, blogs, or other social media pages of such political party or candidate within thirty (30) days from the last day of the period for the filing of the Certificates of Candidacy. Only verified accounts, websites, blogs, or social media pages may run electoral ads and boost or promote electoral posts. Internet companies, social media companies included, are required to provide COMELEC information or documents of candidates or parties who placed political advertisements.
COMELEC Resolution No. 10370 has an inherent limitation. The Supreme Court has pointed out this limitation in several cases. Congress has laid down the law — a candidate is liable for election offenses only upon the start of the campaign period. Thus, before the start of the campaign period on February 8, 2022 for national positions and on March 25, 2022 for local positions, nothing prohibits those who filed their CoCs from engaging in premature campaigning.
With the borderless nature of the internet and social media, our laws do not provide adequate protection from foreign interference in our electoral process. Although social media platforms are equipped with artificial intelligence and human resources to detect fake news and disinformation, they are still grappling with fact-checking posts’ contents, especially for private messaging platforms.
Although social media companies have their own rules against fake news and disinformation, the virtual public space or the “metaverse” these companies have created has become too difficult to regulate. One company publicly asserts that the people, not tech companies, should censor politicians.This assertion is short of admitting that social media posts are impossible to regulate even with advanced technologies available to these companies.
COMELEC may have a hold on political candidates during the campaign period. But the purveyor of lies will always have a way to peddle his wares. If we are to protect the sanctity of our ballots, it behooves us to exercise caution and be more discerning in finding out the truth.