From what I gather of this article I should be siding with rappler but I can't help but strongly dislike rappler for being part of facebook's effort to destroy the internet with their internet.org thing.
I also have a hard time having sympathy for a news outlet that choose to live inside facebook and then complains for having to deal with facebook's shenanigans. You should know better than that and you kinda deserve what happens to you when you choose to be subservient to a global master.
On the other hand this Duterte guy seems to be the usual violent dictator kind and there is no way I can get behind that.
I guess it is a story of two evils, one involved in violence and death but limited to a national local reach and the other empowering the first while having deep global reach and influence on a third of the world population.
Reading this was informative and I've learned about something I was not aware of but this leaves me in an incomfortable place where I feel powerless to help and unhappy to choose the 'right' side.
I wish we could get rid of facebook, this thing is epitome of everything wrong in our western world.
> I also have a hard time having sympathy for a news outlet that choose to live inside facebook and then complains for having to deal with facebook's shenanigans
This is like complaining about anticapitalists participating in capitalism. Just as capitalism is society here, so too is Facebook basically the Internet in Philippines. There isn’t really a choice.
Isn't he more complaining about capitalists participating in capitalism until other people make more money than them, and only then becoming anticapitalists? It's not a group that has always been anti-Facebook. It's a group that has been on the inside pushing Facebook for a long time until other groups co-opted Facebook to push an agenda they don't like. Now they want Facebook to silence those people.
They're closer to crony-capitalists who like capitalism as long as it benefits them, and then want to pass regulations keeping everyone else out.
Yeah, because they on Facebook's side as long as it didn't seem to be threatening human rights for them. Don't assume anyone not living in your cultural area has the same attitude against facebook on the spot. The Philippines were new to it, and Rappler now learned how dangerous it can be the hard way.
What do you mean by 'pushing Facebook'? Is someone with a blog 'pushing Blogspot'? I'm guessing they started on Facebook because it's free and that's where people are. You seem to be judging it like a startup whose primary aim is profit.
The news orgs have discovered placing 10th grade problem sets on the desks of 2nd graders is very lucrative.
It's what the Rush Limbaugh and Jon Oliver types do day in day out (and if you are observant with zero long term impact). All the news orgs are doing it too and they will never regain the trust they once had.
Journalism was never about making people feel helpless.
Today's journalism is about making people feel helpless for profit.
So my advice don't read stuff that's above your grade level.
How does Oliver encourage helplessness? There's often a direct call-to-action at the end of particularly pointed segments, from contacting local representatives to the more frivolous hashtags for e.g. Phillip Morris. While I have issues with his style, the targets are usually well chosen.
With regards to your analogy...you would not have much luck encouraging a 2nd grader to improve their reading comprehension beyond 2nd grade by telling them to stick to a 2nd grade level of reading.
The person you replied to gave 2 specific examples of Oliver making calls to action. If you're going to refute that point, you need to provide examples as well, not just vague assertions. Remember, the meat of Oliver's show is the 15-20 minute segment that is well researched, credits sources and contains a call to action at the end. The most famous example is probably Oliver's video about Net Neutrality 2 years ago galvanised support for it and is used even today to explain NN to laymen. Its absurd to claim that the show promotes cynicism when Oliver always exhorts his viewers to do _something_.
If you're objecting to a "its 2016!" at the end of a throwaway 30-second joke then you're being too sensitive IMO.
please - oliver is on the so-called-left end of the false dichotomy spectrum, whereas limbaugh is on the so-called-right end. both espouse a faux-popularism rooted in arguing against evil strawmen that lacks nuance and always slants towards greater centralized, large-entity control of society.
False equivalence. There's a legitimate argument that allowing one media group to stealthily control local media markets creates potential for mass misinformation. Or that allowing tobacco companies to litigate against entire nations health initiatives is a bad idea. Both are large entities wanting to steer society into alignment with their profit motive.
It's not nearly similar in lack of to calling women prostitutes and sluts for advocating that health insurance should cover female contraception. Or calling 13 years old girls, "dogs".
It's not to do with left and right. It's to do with a basic sense of civility.
Very thoughtful comment, thank you. What do you refer to as „grade level“? Political knowledge, personal range of power, personal sense of empowerment, or psych. ability to deal with hardship?
It is probably a reference to nuance and the fact that the real world is complicated, with multiple competing interests and perspectives. Children learn history in lessons that often have an implicit good-guys/bad-guys story hidden beneath it, while educated adults tend to be able to handle stories that have fewer good guys and bad guys and mostly just a bunch of guys pursuing their own self-interest within a particular environment that provides a specific set of available options. The problem is that the latter sort of lessons involve more cognitive effort and do not lead you to easy answers that make you feel like you are a part of 'the good guys.' John Oliver, much like Rush Limbaugh, tells simple stories of the former variety; stripped of nuance and complications that are intended to lead the recipient to a specific and obvious solution or outcome.
This sounds presumptuous to me. People sometimes think that their perspective is better/more mature/clever/correct, while it is just.. different. They divide people into levels/classes in order to put themselves into the highest class. Given the high complexity of the world, any model falls apart if you look at it hard enough.
As an avid listener to both, Limbaugh is quite a bit more manipulative. I say that as a life-long Republican.
Edit: I should add that Limbaugh demonstrates an ability to use logic and analyze topics that makes me think he is being intentionally deceitful, mostly by leaving out relevant facts.
I've always perceived how news outlets use fear for driving demand for more news, but this is the first time I read about them using helplessness, and it's intriguing.
And you sound like you have looked into this. Is there any relevant publication piece that goes deeper into this rationale?
>> On the other hand this Duterte guy seems to be the usual violent dictator kind and there is no way I can get behind that.
An actress twitted that Duterte is a psychopath and his response was: "I leave her to her Constitutional right to free expression. She should enjoy that".
Dictator right? Some of Duterte's dictatorship plan include:
1. Federalism so that power can be spread throughout the country not in one place only
2. Freedom of Information
Mass murder is mass murder even if a populace is brainwashed, though I would would wager when you have death squads wandering around and use the cover of drugs to take out political opponents to gain power most people would side with you out of fear anyway, like most oppressive dictatorships. People like you are disgusting, you want to support such mass murder on genocidal levels fine but don't be surprised when people shun you. If it we're up to me you should be the one getting murdered for supporting this shit rather than all the innocents killed so far and pending due to fucking chemicals.
People who have not been in the Philippines and are saying things that they don't know are just plain ignorant. For you to even accuse me of being disgusting just proves how naive you are about me and my country.
It is disgusting to support an administration that lies about the statistics of drugs to justify their failing war on drugs that has also taken the lives of innocents from children to bystanders (which the government simply called as "collateral damage" [0]). How many times has our government lied to us about the statistics?
2015 - 1.8 Million Drug Users from a study by the Dangerous Drug Board [1]
2016 - Duterte claims that there are 3.7 Million Addicts in the country [2]
2016 - Months later, Duterte claims that there'd be 4 Million by the end of September [3]
2017 - On May, Philippine Drug Agency says there's now 4.7 Million Addicts [4]
2017 - On September, Foreign Affairs Secretary (and Duterte's VP running mate) hiked the number to 7 Million Drug Addicts at a UN Assembly [5]
Tell me, if his war on drugs is such a success, then why is the number of junkies growing?
The number is "growing" to give Duterte and his friends justification to ramp up and continue their mass murder campaign and allow them to continue convincing the brainwashed masses that they're in constant danger and need their "protection" from the evil drug zombie hordes.
It is disgusting to link sources from those Liberal Party leaning media outfit which we Filipinos know that are full of crap. Look for a journalist that is fair when writing news and I will acknowledge it.
You can find other references from both local and international media, even video recordings, if you think the links I posted aren't deserving of your attention.
You know we can read and hear Duterte's speeches for ourselves, right? Also, he's not unique, in either the Phillipines or the world. It's easy to compare him to Marcos or various other dictators that have engaged in brutal public order campaigns.
it might not be okay in your country but in ours in came to a point that criminals here are not afraid of the law anymore. on my way to work i saw a criminal stabbed someone in broad daylight and then walk away like noting happened without fearing the police which is just a few blocks away.
Some drug people got killed by drug lords to hide their identity but media concluded it was done by death squads since the cases weren't solved until now. Probably there exists, but what's the concrete evidence?
Like this one where Maria Ressa, without further investigation, just published the news. Months later it was found out that the one who killed the guy was an assassin from the drug syndicate.
Your physical location is relevant because your knowledge about what's going on in the Philippines is very limited. The fact that you are saying about death squads proves my point. THERE ARE NO DEATH SQUADS HERE! Watching a few videos doesn't make you an expert about Philippines.
I'm from the Philippines. Am I allowed to comment? There absolutely are police death squads roaming around, so much that Philippine National Police's involvement in the drug war had to be removed after there was too much outrage from the populace. They were even caught executing unarmed kids on CCTV for fuck's sake. Just because you're biased towards our fucktard President and can't accept the truth doesn't mean others are just as blind as you.
The "death squads" or criminals that you are referring too are already part of the police several presidency before Duterte took office. Some of them are involve in drugs and have been killing before Duterte came so why are you blaming the president now?
"And if there is a resistance that would place your life in jeopardy, then by all means shoot and shoot him dead. That is my order"
To defend the people is one of the basic duty of all police here and abroad so what's wrong with that? That's the message of the first article that you linked.
Of course he will congratulate his men about putting their lives on the line for you and others. Plus of course his usual rhetoric (did you take that seriously?)
We all want those policemen found guilty of crimes to be in jail. But did you ever think of who will replace them? You want the military to uphold the law just like back in the martial law days in the 80's? We have a deteriorating police force for a very long time but thanks to Duterte there are a lot of new recruits today. I see them training every day on my way to work.
I assume those policemen would be replaced by other cops that HAVEN'T been found guilty of crimes yet, which isn't going to happen if Duterte keeps protecting dirty cops right?
No I don't want the military to be upholding the law, and I hope you do not too. Which is funny because Duterte has enforced martial law in the whole of Mindanao to quell a conflict in a single city which he himself has declared as already liberated back in October, and now there are rumblings of extending martial law to 2018. Doesn't that alarm you?
Well, there's lots of people who make excuses for police murdering people in the US too. Eventually the scale of the corruption and malfeasance becomes clear and then you'll say you were against these death squads from the beginning.
First you say there are no death squads, not at all no way, no you're saying those people were already in the police. When someone's story keeps changing like that it's always a bad sign.
Are you from Philippines?
From what I know people there are quite happy of Duterte work despite the overzealous rhetoric.
If you are in US I can't see how can you criticise him given that death penalty is quite widespread there and a lot of times the trial is a farce especially if you are black.
I'm writing this from the Philippines. The problem here is that this country has a very weak commitment to rule of law, even though the Constitution of 1987 is based on the US Constitution. The big difference though, especially with regard to the large number of extra-judicial killings that have been carried out under Duterte's administration and with his approval, is that the victims were killed without a trial at all. Say what you want about the US death penalty and the fairness of it, but you cannot be put to death in the US by the government without a trial and legal representation. The Philippines glorifies vigilantism and "banana leaf justice" (because the murdered victims are often covered with a banana leaf or a piece of cardboard with "pusher" scrawled on it) Whataboutism doesn't change that.
I heard a series of "on the street" interviews with Filipinos recently and one was with a couple, one of whom approved of Duterte and one who did not. When the guy, who approved of Duterte, was asked about extrajudicial killings he said something along the lines of "yes, that goes overboard sometimes. Aside from that he's good."
That attitude is even more unsettling to me, somehow. "Aside from all the murders he's committing, things are going well."
> but you cannot be put to death in the US by the government without a trial and legal representation
I agree with you mostly, but um, if you pay attention our cops shoot and kill thousands of people per year, many of them unarmed. And we have a president that was lauding this practice (and praising Duterte). We're nowhere nearly as bad as Duterte, but we're heading in the wrong direction.
> shoot and kill thousands of people per year, many of them unarmed
Closer to one thousand, 10% of whom were unarmed (that 10% includes all the cases where police believed the victim was armed when they actually weren't; believed the victim was reaching for a weapon; believed the victim was using a car as a weapon; cops killing their wives/girlfriends while off-duty; etc.).
My wife is from Philippines, I go there pretty much twice a year, I know a lot of people from Philippines, so maybe I understand their situation a bit better than the countless keyboard warriors that write here without even having put a foot in the country...
You're defending a guy who brags every chance he gets about murdering several guys. Are we supposed to believe that footage of him is fake?
Let me guess, you support Trump, too? I never would have guessed that so many of my fellow Americans were such authoritarians. I knew there were some, of course, but it looks like they may comprise around 30-35% of our population. Tough times ahead for the liberty-minded...
Look, I get the appeal of Duterte. I'm sure that a large percentage of Filipinos are happy with his behavior. That doesn't mean it's right.
Finally, tu quoque is not a very good verbal defense tactic. Most people disregard it other than the people who already agree with you. Most famous example of this technique is Stalin's use of "and you are lynching negroes" [1]. He wasn't wrong, but that didn't mean he wasn't also carrying out political murders on a massive scale. It's just poor rhetoric.
Do I need to have lived in Nazi Germany to talk about the crimes of the Nazis?
I'm not from the US and I'm a vocal critic of US governments, past and present. But even if I was American, the actions of the US government wouldn't be something it was within my power to change and wouldn't be relevant to what Duterte is doing.
You need at least to know something about the things that you speak about.
I can't really stand people that feel entitled to babel about everything without having the slightest idea of the subject they are discussing.
Well, as I said above, I'm in the Philippines, and I'm here to tell you that it's rather troubling what's going on here from a civil rights perspective. Hundreds of journalists have been killed here since the era of the Marcos administration, and the Philippines (and Pakistan!) are among the most dangerous countries in the world for journalists.
that's because a lot of journalists here can be paid. this is a fact. for example, a certain mayor in my city doesn't want to pay his electric bills so what he did was pay journalists to write black propaganda about the president of the electric company to destroy his reputation. and when that wasn't enough he paid the news commentator of an infamous radio station. this happened a decade ago.
For someone who likes to make such broad assertions you don't make any effort to substantiate them. And you're implicitly condoning murder as a response to journalistic corruption. How do I know you're not being paid?
> Rappler, as a news organization, is head and shoulders above 90% of most other news outlets in the region when it comes to factual reporting.
Citation needed. Or you are just pulling stats out of pure, unadulterated BS.
Every form of media is a propaganda machine. Its why China spends a great amount of money and effort for the Great Firewall. Its why advertising is an industry.
The bigger question here is Facebook, and its power to influence the people on a huge scale.
Where Rappler falls in relation to its peers is not relevant. OP was making the point that Rappler is a real entity, headed by real people, who have real interests.
Those interests are often less than saintly, and also have strong explanatory and predictive power.
Edit: the same could be said (and needs to be said more often) about The New York Times.
Online communities need active human management and engagement. You can't automate yourself out of this, Facebook. It seems like this pattern is repeated over and over. Slashdot figured out a way to have human cultivation aided by software. And the result was high quality. Digg came along and tried to go all software, and it failed. Ignoring these lessons, many, many newspapers open up their articles to unfettered commenting and are shocked when anonymous users with no sense of accountability produce ugly comments.
Facebook sometimes does good, sometimes does bad, depending on how its algorithms are tweaked. And it’s likely the algorithms are mostly tweaked to maximize profit.
Currently, the only way to get the company to focus its efforts on truthful news and protection from abuse is through regulation, which happily it looks like the EU has started doing.
But the deeper issue is Facebook being a for-profit, closed-data-garden, global social media behemoth who strangles competition aggressively. As a result, there are few other social media sources to get the truth from, and there is no real competitive pressure on Facebook to make it care enough about protecting its users from abuse.
Why does the truth have to come from social media sources? Did people suddenly forget about old-school journalism? Newspapers, publicly-funded radio and TV programmes etc. Those are far better sources of 'truth' than you'll ever get through social media.
The point wasn’t there aren’t any other sources of reporting available. (though, the traditional media do have a harder time keeping in businees due to the dominance of social media). The point was that an important part of the media, the social one, is being aggressively monopolized by Facebook, so there are less news sources in the social space, so the truth suffers.
> Those are far better sources of 'truth' than you'll ever get through social media.
It depends. I think it’s fair to say social media has an important role in reporting, but that like with newspapers - if you have just one for the entire country, the quality of news will suffer, as will your susceptibility to biased abuse.
In the Philippines, the old school journalism that you are referring is dead. Most journalists here can be bought and this is a fact. We use social media to get information from government agencies pages without the "spin" included.
And there are journalists that are corrupt, paid by politicians, paid by drug lords. It is hard to believe the news coming from official journalists. Foreign journalists must go to the Philippines and investigate themselves. If this kind of article the world believes, and Duterte will be kicked from his precidency then my neighbor would like to celebrate and be back into his drug business.
In the west that might be the case, check and balance for journalists. Our previous administration used to do that as well. Duterte doesn't want to spin information. If you're in doubt you can request something from their Freedom of Information website.
What's the argument here? Those people didn't really die? Or do you have an alternate explanation for who killed them, something the NY Times isn't telling us the truth about because of their secret liberal agenda that extends to the Philippines for some obscure reason?
I might get smacked down by the mods for this, but I don't really care in this particular case, because someone needs to say it. It takes a seriously repulsive human being to justify/defend what Duterte is doing. You should really re-evaluate your belief system, because it's severely defective.
That costs money and and also distribution methods have to move with the times. People don't newspapers or newspaper advertising the way they used to and are much ore likely to turn to their devices for news updates. What are journalists supposed to do? Sure, they can plod away and write serious long-form journalism in the same old publications in hopes of creating the best historical record possible, but if nobody is buying how are they supposed to keep the lights on? Not only do journalists need to get paid, investigations cost money to conduct, and money doesn't just fall out of the air.
Maybe in the past, when it was still a free for all, and governments hadn't woken-up to the power of social media. Since then, Facebook has "learned its place" and it seems to become increasingly more "optimized" toward government propaganda.
Reminded me of CBC’s piece on Duterte from earlier this year (many of the people in the Bloomberg article are represented here). Most of the comments on the video are critical of Leila de Lima, the CBC and the reporter.
The other way to see it is that traditional media may be losing the monopoly of information because people now have internet and social media as alternative.
It concerns me because it seems that Maria Ressa is now turning to foreigners to intervene and destabilize my country?
What if some of these "journalists" are the ones spreading fake news?
But the blogger RJ Nieto AKA Thinking Pinoy (http://www.thinkingpinoy.net/) pointed it out as fearmongering and fake news.
"Rappler cited Agence France Press who cited Rita Katz of SITE Intelligence Group who cited an anonymous "Marawi Contact".
THAT IS DOUBLE HEARSAY (OR EVEN TRIPLE HEARSAY).
You did not even bother to ask Katz herself and instead relied on a news wire!"
https://web.facebook.com/TheThinkingPinoy/photos/a.568177789...
When I saw this online and fully functional, I was glad and convinced that he is the opposite. He is a leader that upholds freedom and embraces technology (this is very important to me because I'm in the tech sector).
He promised to try to uphold peace and order to the people during the campaign. He openly told the people what he's going to do and it's his priority. People voted for him and he won. Well, that's democracy at work.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jul/01/philippines-pr...
How about some of the anti-Duterte who label other people as trolls and try to silence them by taking down their Facebook account, what do you call them?
I was just scrolling here for tech news but then I found this which prompted me to write this. Sorry for the long read. I'd like to know what you think about this. Just refrain from senseless bashing please.
By the way, I live in the PH since birth.
> You did not even bother to ask Katz herself and instead relied on a news wire!
Uh. Because the press relies on news wires all the time? While standard practice, I am not claiming that news wires are infallible. Mistakes can happen. But the difference between traditional journalists and Facebook bloggers is that traditional journalists are held to a standard in factual reporting. You might notice that the first Rappler article you linked to [1] is subheaded by an update which conveys a message different to the headline:
(6th UPDATE) The Philippine National Police says the 'isolated' incident is not a terrorist act but Defense Chief Lorenzana tells Rappler, "We're not ruling out that this is ISIS."
In contrast, bloggers (like RJ Nieto in the Senate hearing regarding fake news) would often just hide behind the excuse "I am entitled to my opinion". Sure, no one contests that you are entitled to your own opinion. But never peddle your opinion as fact.
> Previous administration promised Freedom of Information (FOI) but only Pres. Duterte implemented it.
I don't think this wins points for Duterte. The FOI came relatively late into the last administration's term. The previous administration basically did the bulk of the legislative footwork necessary to pass a bill. Almost all that's left for Duterte to do is to sign the bill.
Had the FOI been raised a few legislative seasons earlier, it might as well be Aquino who signed it into implementation. Carry over projects are common when administrations transition.
> Here's the FOI online portal (Browse over 2662 requests and 217 government agencies).
I think a better measure of FOI's efficacy are the actual statistics. [2] The graph isn't completely clear but it would seem that, as of this writing, there are 797 denied requests (278 labeled as "Denied requests" and 519 merely labeled "Denied"). Compared to 820 successful requests, that means it is roughly 50-50 on whether your FOI request will be granted. So much for "freedom" there.
Granted, some of the denied requests were unfulfilled allegedly since the office from which the data was requested did not have said data. While a believable response, I find it frustrating that our government could not cross-check with other agencies when reasonable. But that is as much freedom as you can get from bureaucracy, I guess.
Initially, they reported without verification that ISIS was responsible. Isn't that fearmongering? Does that not qualify as fake news?
> traditional journalists are held to a standard in factual reporting
Who checks them? They're not infallible just like the bloggers. Don't get me wrong, I'm for free speech and not for censorship. What seems to be happening now is that "journalists" label bloggers in Facebook as trolls to silence them and still label Pres. Duterte as dictator. Who's the dictator in that case?
> bloggers (like RJ Nieto in the Senate hearing regarding fake news) would often just hide behind the excuse "I am entitled to my opinion"
The same RJ Nieto who is one of the people to be the first to raise the issue about Dengvaxia, an unproven vaccine against Dengue administered by the previous administration to about 700,000 children. Dengvaxia is reported to worsen the condition for those who do not have a previous case of Dengue. I think RJ Nieto peddles his opinion quite well to make people accountable. Why do "journalists" label him as troll? Is it because he does not conform to their narrative?
> The previous administration basically did the bulk of the legislative footwork necessary to pass a bill. Almost all that's left for Duterte to do is to sign the bill.
Pres. Duterte issued an executive order. Please don't try to frame it as if he is credit grabbing. Even so, why didn't the previous administration just signed and implemented it? By making it as a priority when Pres. Duterte took office, I think he deserves a kudos.
> But that is as much freedom as you can get from bureaucracy, I guess.
> Initially, they reported without verification that ISIS was responsible.
Because that's what came from the news wire, which as I pointed out is standard practice for professional journalists. News wires work under the assumption that the origin of the story (AFP in this case), have verified the story themselves. In case a mistake happens (as it sometimes does, as it seemingly did here), reporting outlets issue erratum.
> Who checks them? They're not infallible just like the bloggers.
You can check them yourself. One of the hallmarks of proper journalism is citing your references and, in cases where your references request anonymity, publish _other_ references which would either corroborate or rebut your other reference. It is this nuance that makes journalism "professional", a trait which these bloggers sorely lack: Mocha Uson, when asked whether she even tried _at least once_ to ask for an account from the other side (Bam Aquino in this case) invokes her right to "self-discrimi...err...incrimination". Oldest way to cop-out in the book.
> ...and still label Pres. Duterte as dictator. Who's the dictator in that case?
Assuming without conceding that traditional media is wrong in labeling these bloggers as trolls, the difference between them and Duterte is that Duterte is in a position of power to actively act against these journalists. On the other hand, all journalism can do is make their case (in a _professional_ manner) and let the public/other offices of government decide. By themselves, they cannot act against bloggers, let alone the government.
> The same RJ Nieto who is one of the people to be the first to raise the issue about Dengvaxia...
As you can tell, I don't waste my time following Nieto. Aware as I am on the issue of Dengvaxia, I'd withhold judgement on whether Nieto did this in a proper and professional manner.
However, assuming without conceding that this act from Nieto is praiseworthy, this does not change the fact that in most other instances, Nieto fails in basic journalistic rigor, bordering if not crossing over to acts of trolling. Examples: [1] [2]
> I think RJ Nieto peddles his opinion quite well to make people accountable.
Again, you _do not_ peddle opinion to hold people accountable; you hold them accountable with cold, hard, verifiable facts. How can you demand accountability based on opinions from people which, as you yourself concedes, are not infallible? Double whammy there.
> Please don't try to frame it as if he is credit grabbing.
I'm not saying Duterte is credit grabbing but that people are giving him more credit than he is due. There's a difference there.
> Even so, why didn't the previous administration just signed and implemented it?
Because even in legislation, there's a due process that must be followed and the previous administration followed it. Even if for a bill like FOI which I fully support, I will be critical of Aquino had he dubiously manipulated the legislative process just so he could claim the FOI under his belt.
> In case a mistake happens (as it sometimes does, as it seemingly did here), reporting outlets issue erratum
That would seem that they reported fake news that could have caused panic but later on just conveniently issued an erratum.
> You can check them yourself
So, it's a standard that "journalists" can disregard with impunity.
> Duterte is in a position of power to actively act against these journalists
But Pres. Duterte does not as this Bloomberg article clearly shows. Maria Ressa still speaks freely and accuses him openly. That's one less reason to label him as a dictator don't you think? I think I will commend him for that. For upholding freedom of speech.
> Examples: [1] [2]
Regarding the live updates[1], He called it out because it may endanger the soldiers. How should you call them out and get them in check instead?
Regarding the NUJP's condemnation[2], Nieto seems to be joking. Well, I consider jokes and figure of speeches as gray areas in freedom of speech. I don't have to defend him anyway. He can do that for himself.
> Again, you _do not_ peddle opinion to hold people accountable
I just playfully used your words peddle and opinion. Calm down :) That may have made it vague. What I meant is that he effectively raises issues using his words such as the Dengvaxia scandal. Now that it has gained awareness, we may now expect accountability to those who administered it during the past and the present administration. I hate it that the people responsible did it to the children out of greed.
> I'm not saying Duterte is credit grabbing but that people are giving him more credit than he is due. There's a difference there.
Well, I'm giving Pres. Duterte credit because he delivered what the previous administration did not. That's the big difference there.
> Because even in legislation, there's a due process that must be followed and the previous administration followed it. Even if for a bill like FOI which I fully support, I will be critical of Aquino had he dubiously manipulated the legislative process just so he could claim the FOI under his belt.
Maybe you should be critical of Aquino if you really fully support FOI. Knowingly that legislative is slow, he should have at least issued an executive order just as Pres. Duterte did. You just gave me another reason to give Pres. Duterte credit because he found a way to do it quickly in his first few months what the previous administration wasn't able to do after many years in office. Maybe you should too ;)
> That would seem that they reported fake news that could have caused panic but later on just conveniently issued an erratum.
You are taking excerpts of my response out-of-context to argue your point.
Again, they had reason to believe it was true, because the information came from a source they trust (AFP/the news wire). I would not call it "fake news" if they admitted the case from the other side later on.
If you'd sneer at people admitting their own mistakes (like by issuing errata)...well I hope you don't make mistakes of your own.
> So, it's a standard that "journalists" can disregard with impunity.
You are the only one saying that. If their reporting does not check out with their references, they lose credibility at best or get sued for libel at worst.
> But Pres. Duterte does not
I am not claiming that he is doing it. I am claiming that he _can_ do it. He CAN dictate the police/influence regulating bodies to strangle institutions. In contrast, these institutions do not have any similar influence. That is why, unless you are using the word "dictator" in a context other than political, you cannot label institutions as dictators.
> Regarding the live updates[1], He called it out because it may endanger the soldiers.
Now this, my friend, is a clear example of what you are calling "fake news that could have caused panic". Quoting the article: "But Aznar stressed that if Nieto's accusations of him endangering the troops were true, why is the Armed Forces of the Philippines still allowing him to cover the Marawi siege?" Surely, on-the-ground AFP units know better than Nieto on whether Aznar is endangering them? And yet Nieto saw it fit to raise an online hue-and-cry. Errata/apologies from Nieto: 0, nil, zilch, nada. Makes it hard to believe that his intentions were for the best interest of the AFP (and in fact, had that been the case, would it not make more sense to discreetly raise the matter to AFP, seeing that he has contacts in the government the ordinary Filipino does not?).
And also,
> Regarding the NUJP's condemnation[2], Nieto seems to be joking.
Imagine if a professional journalist made "jokes" in bad taste like that. Imagine the professional backlash they would face. And yet Nieto who keeps passing off his opinions as "fact" is not held to the same standard.
Point: any professional journalist who value their own credibility would be careful not to say things like this, joking or not.
> What I meant is that he effectively raises issues using his words such as the Dengvaxia scandal.
Ends do not justify means. You originally raised Nieto's part in exposing Dengvaxia in response to me labeling Nieto as "fake news". I stand by my original assertion and that even if Nieto's role in exposing Dengvaxia is significant, that does not redeem him from all the other times he peddled baseless accusations or outright lies.
> he found a way to do it quickly in his first few months what the previous administration wasn't able to do after many years in office
Duterte would not have been able to implement it quickly were it not for the legislative foundations (House meetings, Senate deliberations, etc.) that happened in the previous administration. It is not as if all the work on this bill was done exclusively by Duterte's administration. To claim that the previous administration weren't able to do anything for FOI after many years in office is outright false.
In fact, no amount of executive orders can will an ordinary bill into a strong law in a matter of months. Should any president try, there are checks and balances in the government (hi Supreme Court) that could question the process and hold the implementation. Heck the RH Bill took its sweet time before it even became a document awaiting a president's signature and it was still issued a TRO for over a year. Not to mention that today, the RH Law is a toothless version of what was originally passed.
This is an extremely biased piece of journalism that almost anyone on the ground in the Philippines would disagree with. Very dishonest and should not be trusted at face value.
This is a story about people spreading false, content-free things on social media to discredit political opponents. In that context, your comment raises more questions than it answers.
In addition, the piece makes a large number of factual assertions that could be easily verified. Are journalists being targeted for harassment? Are government-linked bloggers advocating for the arrest of journalists? A moment's googling suggests the answer is "yes". And of course Duterte's death squads are well known.
Edit: Also, I don't think a glib accusation of bias helps much here. Yes, no doubt there's two (or more) sides to this story, but even if true, that amounts to nothing more than a tu quoque at best, and a "they deserved it" at worst.
For those of us on the other side of the world, Would you be willing to give a quick summary of the biases you see in the piece, a taster of your experience of the reality on the ground?
The article makes it sound like it's fake accounts who are against some in the media, but it's really the entire population.
The article calls out fake profile pictures on facebook as some indication of an artificial message. This is wrong - many people on facebook use fake profile pictures. I use a fake profile picture myself, although my account is genuine. Probably a third of your facebook friend list uses fake profile pictures - go check for yourself. The article also says they have collected a database of facebook accounts that post pro-Duterte messages as if this is somehow an indictment. With Duterte having an 80%+ approval rating across 100mil people population, many of whom have Facebook accounts, do you think a database of 2mil posters is somehow unexpected or fake?
From my time in the Philippines, everyone on the street supports Duterte because he's given them a sense of safety again. For many in western countries, this kind of feeling is unknown because you've likely never walked the streets expecting to be killed at any moment - you have working police and institutions that keep you safe. For many years, the Philippines did not have this, and they see Duterte as having helped make them safe. This breeds an almost fanatical devotion for obvious reasons, and most Phillipinos on social media will defend him with ferocity. The article tries to associate this as something bad and fake. But it's not, it's real and genuine. You can open up Twitter right now and go to Trump's feed and you will see people who hate him and many who wish violence on him. That doesn't mean those people are fake - and the people supporting Duterte aren't fake either.
The issue with fake accounts is they can help skew popular opinion. It's not a defence to say "yeah, there's fake accounts, but popular opinion agrees with them". All that means is they (might be) working.
> The article calls out fake profile pictures on facebook as some indication of an artificial message.
It did not; it called out fake profiles. Nowhere in the article did it suggest that a fake profile picture was itself evidence of a fake profile.
> The article also says they have collected a database of facebook accounts that post pro-Duterte messages as if this is somehow an indictment.
It's a database of (mostly real) accounts that post messages that originate with fake accounts; it's a way of measuring the scale of the problem. If millions of real accounts echo these fake messages, it does't mean that there isn't a problem, it means the problem is really big.
> For many in western countries, this kind of feeling is unknown because you've likely never walked the streets expecting to be killed at any moment - you have working police and institutions that keep you safe.
The homicide rate in the Philippines isn't that high; it's comparable to where the US was 20 years ago. That's obviously not ideal, but there are countries where when expecting death when you walk down the street is reasonable. Honduras has a murder rate of 90 per 100k people; El Salvador is 70 per 100k people. The Philippines is 9 per 100k.
> The article tries to associate this as something bad and fake. But it's not, it's real and genuine.
You're talking about a "sense of safety" and "feelings", and then discounting claims of fake stories as if those stories couldn't possibly influence these feelings. Nobody is claiming that Duterte isn't popular; we're discussing why he's popular. Maybe he's popular because of stories spread by fake Facebook accounts that made people feel safer, even though the fundamentals haven't changed?
Plus, if you look at the actual numbers, in Duterte's first year in office, according the the Philippine National Police, murders actually increased by 22.75%.
> everyone on the street supports Duterte because he's given them a sense of safety again
The article gives zero proof of any kind of fake accounts aside from fake profile pictures, and calls Facebook out for not removing the accounts, even thought Facebook says they have removed the fake ones. So clearly Facebook does not feel that those particular accounts are fake either.
Calling someone you don't like a "fake account" (as someone has already hinted about me in this very comment section!), does not suddenly turn it into a fake account. It's a real account until you provide absolute proof - especially when the supposed fake account has the same opinion as 80mil+ people in a country. Sorry.
The rest of your argument hinges on the idea that 80mil people are terribly stupid and can't tell fake accounts from real accounts - even though they live in the country - and have fallen for a ruse. While you, in your great wisdom - who has probably never been in the Philippines? - know them all to be fake without any evidence. That's a fairly poor argument in my opinion.
> Calling someone you don't like a "fake account" (as someone has already hinted about me in this very comment section!)
I don't know where someone hinted that you're a fake account, but you are certainly disingenuously passing yourself off as some kind of authority on what ordinary Filipinos think, when you don't even live in the Philippines, but a country thousands of miles away.
This explains why your only evidence of "the entire population" favouring Duterte is a Youtube of people who like Duterte saying they like Duterte, and what some people allegedly told you when you visited the country.
> even though they live in the country [...] who has probably never been in the Philippines?
And why are you even getting so worked up and fanatical about this? Because you spent two weeks in Boracay? It's not your country - you live in South Africa - so why are you acting otherwise?
So a foreigner who talks to some people while doing remote work is presenting himself as an authority on the views of people of said country. Well then, I've visited Cancun on a number of occasions. I can say for a fact, that all Mexicans drink Corona beer.
What is baffling is how someone who has no idea what they are talking about, does nothing but make Trump like complaints about bias and how "everyone" likes the dictator etc etc. Troll
As we've learned to our sorrow people in first world countries (eg, Americans, Germans, etc.) can't reliably detect fake accounts or fake news stories. Why should Filipinos be uniquely able to do so?
I don't believe that is true. You want it to be true, and so you've fallen for it. The only kind of fake news stories anybody falls for are fake news stories that support their own biases. Such as this article, but that goes without saying.
You are utterly wrong about that, and it is easily proven. (People not only believe the fake news stories, some of them even arm themselves and storm pizza parlors to rescue the innocent children Hillary Clinton is trafficking as sex slaves, or refuse to vaccinate their kids and thereby put their own children and others at risk, etc etc etc etc etc).
But it's interesting you are getting so worked up defending this idea — why is that? What cognitive bruise are you protecting?
> The only kind of fake news stories anybody falls for are fake news stories that support their own biases.
I'd rather say that people only fall for fake news stories that don't run counter to their own biases. I.e. when someone is completely ignorant about a topic, and the first story they read about it is fake news, they might believe it.
In any case, you seem to be agreeing that people fall for fake news that supports their own biases, hence:
>> people in first world countries (eg, Americans, Germans, etc.) can't reliably detect fake accounts or fake news stories.
They can reliably detect whether something does or does not agree with their preexisting knowledge/biases, but that doesn't always help with detecting fake accounts or fake news.
The article itself provides no proof that the people they are calling fake are indeed fake. That counts as being deliberately malicious in my book, but I'd think it would count as being 'biased' in anybody's book. That's all I wanted to bring to people's attention. Often just pointing it out to people is enough to help sway them away from making a mistake, and trusting this article as being on the level would be a terrible mistake for anyone to make.
>The rest of your argument hinges on the idea that 80mil people are terribly stupid
No more stupid than 60m people in Germany or 40m people in Italy or 10m people in Chile or 4m people in Haiti or 30m people in the Philippines or 7m people in Zimbabwe or 20m people in Venezuela etc.
It doesn't require a 'stupid' population to believe the propaganda of murderous regimes; it's something any group of people is susceptible to, as we have seen time and again at great cost.
Thank you for the insight. It seems to me people in the western world/media just can't accept that leaders in other countries can genuinely have high approvals in the population despite behaving dictatorial and using violence (I'm also thinking of people like Putin and Erdogan here).
This is something that we've (we as in western europeans) also had our fair share of and thought it over and done with. The reality seems to be though that time and again crises arise which enable violent/dictatorial leaders to rise to power.
I don't try to defend anything Duterte's doing here. In fact I don't really know too much about what he's done, other than the horrendous 'everbody's free to kill drug dealers' policy. I just don't like that so many news outlets seem to be fixated on discrediting genuine approval and followings as all just being 'fake news'.
Please people, tell me what is wrong with this comment! Tear me up, show me my errors, make me understand, but don't just downvote me and leave me in the dark.
Man.. Nobody has ever said Duerte isn't supported by the population. All dictators have some kind of support, otherwise they could never govern.
People is saying two things. First we (as western world) know dictatorship is bad, because exactly how you said, we've been there. Expecially Europe. US has actually never tried it. But we actually know what happens.
Second, we also know that to get to power dictators always have to use extremely violent or aggressive techniques. Maybe by condemning these we could prevent dictatorships and all the crap that follows altogheter.
Besides, it's instead entirely possible to me that this is an unskippable step in a country's history, and people have to go through that phase and try it on their skin, so whatever.
The point of the artcle was more about the role of Facebook into this anyway.
It suggests the unthinkable possibility that a leader, whom the downvoter doesn't care for, may actually be popular with others. And that just can't be right, it has to be all propaganda and fake news causing this mistaken popularity. Similar to "Russians stole the election!" in the US. It's a failure to comprehend or accept people have different backgrounds, beliefs and values and a certainty that preference and political opinion are objective truth.
Because you suggested many people may in fact possibly support Duarte, you threaten the illusion which is tantamount to supporting Duarte yourself in the mind of the downvoter. It really is a shockingly form of mental myopia from otherwise intelligent people and renders them unable to accurately predict and understand large chunks of the world (like last election in US).
Whether it's politics, religion, unrealistic business goals or unrealistic career goals ("I'm going to be a famous rap artist or else play in the NBA!") I think there is simply no way to get hated on faster than attempting to ground an illusion with reality. You become perceived as part of the problem when you do that. (Still needs to be done though IMOP).
FYI, since 2016 a certain Liberal Party Senator and Maria Ressa wants total control of social media and internet.
For those who have no idea about the Philippines and its politics. Rappler is a George Soros funded media outfit and Maria Ressa is well known Aquino (former president) or Liberal Party apologist. In the Philippines, Facebook, not twitter, is the more popular medium people used to engage in social media and politics and Rappler is losing the social media battle in Facebook that's why Maria Ressa is so desparate to get the attention of foreign media. And, from what I read Rappler is in trouble with funding.
The main reason why people are staying away from Rappler is becuase they spin almost all of their news about Duterte and the present administration. Yes there are fake news in Facebook but there are certainly a lot of fake news in Rappler, really.
Bullshit. Fake news is different from bias. CNN is biased. Fox News is biased. Rappler is biased. What they don't do is pass of fake information or rumors as news, like saying "since 2016 a certain Liberal Party Senator and Maria Ressa wants total control of social media and internet." You're entitled to your own opinion, but you're not entitled to your own facts.
I'm sure they want to take control of the social media, since Duterte has pretty much been spreading fake news [0] along with his facebook army of trolls [1 & 2] to discredit the opposition. And sometimes even members of the Duterte cabinet [3] are doing it as well to link the opposition to a terrorist conspiracy. He even has some control in twitter, having been discovered by a social media analytics firm that 20% of those who mention Duterte are actually bots [4].
>He even has some control in twitter, having been discovered by a social media analytics firm that 20% of those who mention Duterte are actually bots [4].
How is that credible evidence of “having some control in twitter”? Because 20% of his mentions are bots? any major politician going to attract the attention of automated press wire bots and aggregators, the idea of using that as evidence is a conspiracy theory.
Apologies then as perhaps I've misworded there. I was trying to say that his presence extends to twitter and that it is at least significant/worthy of attention.
To discredit the opposition, really?! You're naive. The opposition needs not to be discredited because of their fuck ups for 6 years!
Read about how the former President Aquino and his Liberal Party cohorts who approved the UNTESTED dengue vaccine, DengVaxia!!! It was discovered recently when Sanofi Pasteur declared it as unsafe. Now because of the stupidity of those people 700K+ kids will pay the price because of their greed?! How many already died up-to-date?!
If they are, then what's with all of these trial by publicity, spreading of fake news, and making of baseless accusations? And by the way, the opposition isn't solely composed of the Liberal Party. I guess it's a result of the propaganda machine that labels anyone that's against Duterte as an LP supporter.
"But before Duterte took office, as president-elect, he sent a chilling message to a press corps ready to report on his presidency: "Just because you're a journalist, you're not exempted from assassination, if you are a son of a bitch," he said casually at a press conference. "Free speech won't save you, my dear."
>> The problem is when a foreign journalist, like Gianna Toboni, writes something she know little about so let me give you a little more background about that statement. What Duterte said that "you're not exempted from assassination, if you are a son of a bitch" was NOT a threat but a FACT. It is a FACT that decades before the Duterte presidency journalists here were being killed simply because journalists (FACT) here can be paid and used for black propaganda by politicians. We know what he was talking about.
It's always troubling when authority figures need people to explain what they meant instead of being able to state it clearly themselves, but since you say Duterte was making a comment on the past, perhaps you'd care to explain why he's doing so using the present and future tense.
This is the second post in the thread where you've basically said that murder is an acceptable response to journalistic corruption. As you're so in love with your 'FACT' perhaps you can give us a factual definition of what makes someone a 'son of a bitch.'
What is more troubling is when people like you, who have no first hand knowledge, insists that you know better by just reading a few articles on the internet. And, you're pathetic to assume that murder is acceptable.
I haven't insisted on anything, and you're just attempting to duck the questions I posed.
Duterte specifically speaks of journalists risking assassination and you're OK with that. Assassination is synonymous with murder so you shouldn't have any problem with my use of the term.
I also have a hard time having sympathy for a news outlet that choose to live inside facebook and then complains for having to deal with facebook's shenanigans. You should know better than that and you kinda deserve what happens to you when you choose to be subservient to a global master.
On the other hand this Duterte guy seems to be the usual violent dictator kind and there is no way I can get behind that.
I guess it is a story of two evils, one involved in violence and death but limited to a national local reach and the other empowering the first while having deep global reach and influence on a third of the world population.
Reading this was informative and I've learned about something I was not aware of but this leaves me in an incomfortable place where I feel powerless to help and unhappy to choose the 'right' side.
I wish we could get rid of facebook, this thing is epitome of everything wrong in our western world.