Debunking Rappler’s ‘Weaponizing the Internet’

In Maria Ressa's article Propaganda War: Weaponizing the Internet, she first cited that there is a propaganda going on the internet.

Really?

How they concluded

Like the image below, during the Davao Blast, numerous fake websites spread an article from Rappler that a "Man with a high quality of bomb nabbed at Davao checkpoint" and many of the Duterte supporters shared the article as if it has a connection with the Davao Bombing. Some ignorantly shared the article praising the Duterte admin because the "Davao Bomber" was caught without knowing that the article was originally published on March 2016 and it was still at the height of the election campaign.

When I investigated the website, the website's footer claims it was created on 2013, but using an advanced google search query, site:newstrendph.com, the website was indexed around early June of 2016 and Duterte was not yet the President that time. So there is actually a basis that this website is a propaganda machine by the Duterte administration because it was active on the height of its throne.

But, if you belong to the anti-Duterte forces, you will believe the first statement above, but as a blogger and an Adsense partner of Google, there's more to it than a so-called propaganda machine, the website, NewsTrendPh is just a business platform created by an individual who wants to earn through online monetizing, which Filipinos knew little about.

If it's not a propaganda machine, why is the website Pro-DUTERTE?

Source: Google Adwords

Let me educate you how this business works. First, a blogger must find a good niche (topic) for its website to be visited by thousands, and like this one, the word "duterte" is actually a very hot topic, with an average of 100K to 1 million searches per month. In this timeline alone, Duterte is the most Googled person in the Philippines.

Using Google's Adwords, we get an insight into how massive the readers you get by just calculating the keyword. And obviously, the website NewsTrendPh has a Duterte keyword on under its title. So it will be registered to Google's search algorithm under the keyword "duterte".

The owner of the website obviously knows who to target to earn dollars from Google and Duterte supporters are the easiest targets. Duterte supporters love to share articles without checking their authenticity and they are good baits for disinformation. With a good topic and lots of Facebook shares, the website NewsTrendPh gets a visitor per second and the website is loaded with pop-up third-party advertisements that help the website run further and make the author filthy rich.

So is the author a paid troll by the Duterte administration? No, the website is just a business which targets a certain group of people, and that group of people is the Duterte passionate supporters.

Read Google's hint on targeting audiences.

Still not convinced?

Now, the next thing Rappler exhibited was the fake child rape case that was found out to be from Brazil, not the Philippines which was recklessly shared by the camp of Duterte administration.

This can be a propaganda, sparking the hate of netizens who support Duterte's War against Crime and Drugs, and that fake topic was a successful one.

But first, let me tell you that:
a) Even its from Brazil, child raped and killed cases are rampant in the Philippines [ABS]
b) This could be an 'honest mistake case' like the Cynthia Patag controversy [Rappler]

On Rappler's bot claim

As Rappler writes:

"A bot is a program written to give an automated response to posts on social media, creating the perception that there’s a tidal wave of public opinion. Since this is machine-driven, it can manufacture thousands of posts per minute."

First, bot exists on Facebook, like the Messenger Bot created by the Facebook people themselves. But those are just messaging bots that you can use on your Facebook page, even Rappler use the messenger bot. But illegal bots, on the other hand, only live shortly since Facebook is active in eliminating them in just a few weeks, if not days.

What about those Duterte supporters who comment on Facebook pages with the same message? Well, that is called the art of copy-pasting and they are done by passionate Duterte supporters. Rappler can prove that bots exist on Facebook, but it cannot prove that the Duterte supporters use bots to spread disinformation. You can access Facebook for free and many Filipinos have smartphones so it's not a shocking revelation actually.

Source: ThinkingPinoy

The engagement statistics above is enough proof that bots do not exist on these famous Dutertard-supported pages. Why? Because bots do not generate the "view engagement formula", and to generate Facebook engagement, a certain user must like, comment and view/read the page and obviously bots do not generate the "view page" criteria (because bots only comment or auto-like pages).  Not convinced? Then try to read the official Facebook article on Insights.

And based on the image above, Rappler is most likely infected with fake accounts than ThinkingPinoy because it has more followers count than its engagements. A page with 2.8 million followers but only 315k engagement per week? That is obviously worst, it means that either those followers are inactive or Rappler is not doing good enough to climb unto their feeds.

These are the only things Maria Ressa did right when writing the article:

• Bot exists; but Duterte supporters are not using it

• Fake account exists; some anti-Duterte and pro-Duterte peeps are guilty of creating fake accounts (some for security reasons and for trolling)

Also, Maria Ressa cried how the Duterte Supporters are destroying social media and Rappler. Well, according to Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerberg, "No, we are a tech company, not a media company," so the odds are not in their favor, they have no power over it as Maria Ressa claimed she owns the internet, sorry to disappoint you, Maria Ressa!