Atty. Gregorio B. Austral, CPA
Fake news, gun violence, and the future of the electoral process
Guns, goons, and gold have always been perceived to affect the results of the elections. This explains why our election laws are crafted to prevent blood baths and to criminalize vote buying. Congress has all the reason to be paranoid about these things since the history of Philippine elections is mired by electoral violence and massive vote buying. With the era of election automation and social media, guns, goons, and gold seem outdated and ineffective. However, the tragic event that recently happened in the province of Negros Oriental is proof that the use of violence is still practiced.
Why would a candidate hire a gang of hoodlums and run the risk of being charged with electoral violence when the same result can be achieved with just a click of a finger?
Politicians seem to have adapted to this modern era where voters are no longer forced to vote by coercion or through the undue influence of money but are persuaded by deception and lies masqueraded as truth. Social media then becomes an additional weapon in the arsenal of traditional politics.
Fake news proliferates in every corner of social media. In the 2016 US presidential elections, fake news abound to trick the minds of Americans. Many were exposed to this web of lies, but studies show that there is no strong evidence that would suggest that fake news has affected the decision of the voters. BBC.com has reported a ‘black hole’ of fake news in Indian elections. India’s most popular messaging platform ‘WhatsApp’ has become a vehicle for misinformation and propaganda ahead of the election. The Facebook-owned app has announced new measures to fight this, but experts say the scale of the problem is overwhelming. The Philippines is no exception to using fake news to launch black propaganda to discourage Filipino voters from voting for their chosen candidates. Facebook promised to take down fake accounts and stop the distribution of fake news to assure “election integrity” in the Philippines. The leading social media platform in the Philippines promises to promote election integrity as issues of fake news are more heightened during election periods.
Desperate politicians may soon realize that character assassination, traditional vote buying, and harassment may not be effective in the end. The fake news circulating in social media may not be a cause for concern since voters can distinguish lies from truth. There is one thing that we must all be vigilant about: electoral fraud in this era of automated elections. A simply-coded malicious script intercalated into the automated election system may enthrone a person who does not represent the people’s will. When this happens, God forbids, deception will be etched in the annals of our history and will be believed as true ‘til eternity.