 all the communication educators around the country, research professionals, faculty and students in the social sciences, political strategists, public information officers, and of course our media friends. It is a pleasure to be with all of you as we tackle the most pressing communication problems in the age of social media. The weaponization of digital information. Welcome to the first of a series of webinars in the National Forum on Communication and Democracy, Philippine Elections 2022, The Battle of the Thrones. I am Veronica Baluy-Temenez and I will serve as your host and moderator for today's program, which may also be viewed by a live streaming on YouTube at the TV UP channel, as well as on the TV UP and the Philippines Communication Society Facebook pages. We will also be live tweeting, so please use hashtag PCS forum series with your posts. Before we begin, let us acknowledge the following. We would like to thank the University of the Philippine System, Office of the Vice President for Public Affairs, Philippines Communication Society, UP Information Technology Development Center or ITDC, TV UP, the Internet Television Network of the University of the Philippines, and everyone who has helped to make this forum series possible. And because we have a lot of faculty and students watching us today, PCS members who have watched at least 50% of the webinar duration will be receiving a certificate of attendance as a benefit of their PCS membership. If you have not applied for or renewed your membership yet, this is your chance to be part of the premier organization that represents the Communication Discipline to the Philippine Social Science Council. The online membership form is available on the PCS website, philkomsoc.org slash membership. Since this is a national forum on communication and democracy, we want to make sure that everyone has an opportunity to be heard. So aside from our Zoom poll for our attendees in Zoom, we will also be using Mentimeter in order to include our viewers who are watching on Facebook and YouTube. We encourage everyone to participate in our mini quiz, the answers to which our speakers will reveal during our panel discussion. Again, for our viewers in Facebook and YouTube, please open your browser and go to menti.com and fill in the menti code 76940949 or simply scan the QR code on your screen. Again, that's 76940949. For our attendees in Zoom, you can answer using the Zoom poll function when you flash the mini quiz on your screen later on. Okay, so I know everyone must be very excited to get this inaugural webinar of the National Forum on Communication and Democracy, Philippine elections 2022 off to a good start. So let us begin our webinar in the Battle of the Trolls with a few words from the President of the University of the Philippine System, Professor Danilo El Concepcion, here in represented by the UP system, Vice President for Public Affairs and President of the Philippines Communication Society. Please welcome Dr. Elena E. Perna. Hello, good morning, Nikki, and good morning to everyone. Good morning, Dr. Perna. I know you're very excited about this, this is your family. So congratulations on your recent election as President of the Philippines Communication Society. I understand that this continuing series is one of your first projects. Can you tell us more about the future plans of PCS? Oh yes, but of course, Nikki, the next two years will be truly exciting, I believe for us at the PCS as we will strive to push the frontiers of communication knowledge and practice in the country. Today's webinar is the first of a series that aims to create awareness and deep understanding about the campaign and the national elections. So everyone, please watch out for the announcement of the next webinar topic later in the program. Sounds like a lot of exciting projects are in store for PCS. I think our viewers are now ready to hear your formal opening remarks. Please go ahead with your brief message. Good morning, everyone, and I am here to read the message of UP President Danilo El Concepcion. On behalf of the University of the Philippines, I warmly congratulate the directors and members of the Philippines Communication Society for convening this national forum on communication and democracy which puts focus on Philippine elections 2022. This forum jointly presented by the PCS and the University of the Philippines through the TV UP and the Office of the Vice President for Public Affairs is squarely within the mandate of the UP to lead as a public service university. Guided by the values of honor and excellence, UP endeavors to be a preeminent regional and global university in an environment that sustains 21st century learning, knowledge, creation and public service for society and humanity. The very essence of the UP's existence as a national university is to serve the Filipino people through our instruction, research and public service functions. What force knowledge created and generated by research if this is not shared with policy and decision makers at the local and national levels, with the private sector and with the public that so needs the best knowledge and expertise that the university can offer. During this extraordinarily challenging time when our country and the whole world confront the hardships that the COVID-19 coronavirus has caused, the UP has implemented various public service initiatives from dealing with the pandemic to addressing the infodemic. Combatting online misrepresentations on various issues and platforms which is a theme of your webinar today, Battle of the Trolls, is an issue that the university has long been concerned with. One effort was during the run-up to the May 2019 elections. In order to safeguard the sanity of the ballot and promote voter education, three UP units, UP delimends departments of journalism and computer science and college of law partnered with like-minded universities and media institutions to create Check.ph. This website, which still exists, is a collaborative fact-checking initiative dedicated to battling the spread of misinformation and fake news during the election period. Another pre-pandemic endeavor to educate voters was the UP Sahalalan project, which for which lectures, fora, and similar events were held in cooperation with government and private organizations and during which candidates for national positions like the presidency, vice-presidency, and the Senate engaged in life, face-to-face debate and discussion. The pandemic and the restrictions set by community quarantine guidelines should not disrupt the 2022 elections nor should they dampen the importance of voter education and the value of citizen participation in the electoral process. We all hope that many Filipinos will participate and be enlightened about their crucial role as voters. Thank you very much and Philippines Communication Society for your time and important public service. I invite all of you to participate and watch the webinar series, National Forum on Communication and Democracy. Thank you very much Dr. Purnia for your words of wisdom and inspiration. We look forward to your presence in the panel discussion as well as a Q&A later on. Now we move on to our mini-quiz. You may now start answering the poll on your screen, simply go to menti.com 76940949. The first question is give three words to describe a troll. Okay so we see some words there and then the second question is controls influence the outcome of the national elections? We see that there have been 46 answers already and their answer is yes. Oh 52 now so it's going up. All right later on we will update you on the poll. All right we will leave the menti meter poll open as we continue with our program. Our speakers will provide the answers during our panel discussion later on. As we are hearing from our viewers let us now hear the word on the street with a person on the street interview with TV UP. As far as I know, this is the troll. These are the people who want to provoke or manipulate. These are the people who are paying or not paying to collect information back to their propaganda. To create false opinions or false information to the people who are involved in social media or on the internet. There are people who do not get paid but there are people who personally want to get or get paid by doing this. If you come as an entertainment then if the person who's reading is not aware of the trolls there will be a sublime. There will be misinformation. There are people who believe in what they see on the surface level that they do not research what the trolls say. There will be a huge troll effect on our next election especially if we do not teach the people to be critical to what they are watching or what they see on the social media or on the internet. There will be a huge effect on our next election because we have seen that this is the kind of election. And we saw how big the army of a populist who won the last presidential election. And I think from there we can see that it works and it's still working. In our time, almost all of us are on social media and others are not able to check that's why this information has been put a lot. They will surely check the source of the news. When they check it, it seems like they will double or triple check it. We will try to find ourselves in the right sources, the verified accounts so that we are not mistaken and believe in the propaganda that the trolls are helping. We need social responsibility here. So when people are aware of what they see on the social media, I think people can identify and they know what they are looking for. It takes time for people to understand that not everyone has an idea of what is happening, that makes aware of what is happening. And I think we have to give them the chance to understand that they're trolls. It's real. And I think, yeah, there is hope for everyone. Thank you very much TV UP for giving us a glimpse of the pulse of the masses. Trolling as a propagandistic effort and a new business opportunity has been proliferating in the country for years now. It has been used as a political weapon during elections and it has become very purposeful in influencing the decision making of the people. As a result, the Philippines has been identified as one of the safe havens of troll farms with the growth of troll armies becoming an industry. And it's now expected to storm the elections in 2022. To share with us his experience and expertise on this topic, it is a great honor to introduce to you someone who has extensively studied the shadowy political trolling industries in Southeast Asia. Joining us from the US, please welcome an associate professor of global digital media at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Dr. Jonathan Corpus Ong. Hello. Thank you so much for having me. It is such an honor and a pleasure to be with everybody here. It's a great honor to be with journalists and teachers, fellow teachers who are here educating our youth. And so really happy to have this conversation with you. Good evening to you, Dr. Ong. We're glad that you stayed up late to accommodate this webinar despite the time zone difference. Our audience is very thrilled to hear from you. But before we begin, can you briefly give us a background on what started your research interest in media ethics and digital politics, specifically the issue of political trolling in the Philippines? Yeah. Thank you so much for that question. So I'm a communication researcher. My PhD is in sociology. And my original study in the area of communication is actually on digital labor, digital workers. So how are digital industries becoming sunshine industries and growth industries for many different countries, particularly in the global south, just like in the Philippines. We know that we're the call center capital of the world. We surpassed India. We're also the content moderation capital in the world. At the same time of 2016, we realized that troll armies is also becoming a growth industry. And that to me is something concerning. So for me, the central question behind my study is how does one become a troll? How do you get recruited? What is the contract? What is the business contract? Do they pay taxes? Who are these trolls? Where do they come from? And also what are the ethics of trolling? How do these people sleep at night? So that's my question. Wow, I think that is a great teaser for your presentation. I'm excited to hear your answers to that. Now you may share your slides. We are at the edge of our seats with excitement for this deep dive into the dark world of the internet trolls. Go ahead. Okay. I hope everybody can see my slides right here. The title of my presentation is, Kaya na ba ang susanod na troll? Recruitment and diversification in the influence industry. So once again, thank you so much to my colleagues in UP, the demand and everyone who has organized this webinar. Thanks to the journalists and fellow teachers who are part of this webinar. But I address this question, the central question of my talk today to the students who are listening and watching this webinar. Kaya na ba ang susanod na troll? So for me, when I talk to college students or fresh graduates, I don't even begin by telling them, beware of fake news, beware you will be exposed to trolling. I'm now much more worried of you might get recruited into troll work and you might not know what you actually signed up for. So that is the aim of my presentation to take us through the system and the structure of the troll industry. Trolling is not just a product of a politician. Hindi lang siya organized by Trump. Hindi lang siya organized by Duterte. Hindi lang din siya kagagawa ng influencers. Pero is siya industriya and we are in many ways complicit to it. And that's what I want us to discuss today. Can we discuss trolling not just in terms of an identity na parang siya, troll yan or ito troll ito. Na parang in many ways, different kinds of work and work arrangements are vulnerable to troll work. So parang marami entry point into becoming a troll and that's what's worrying me na parang nga diversify siya, mas maraming entry points for any young person to get into this kind of work. So I'll just be reading from the presentation that I prepared for you today. So my argument is that what we've seen over the past years is also many of our interventions don't seem to be very effective. So us academics, researchers, we often publish academic work aimed for our fellow colleagues to fellow academic audiences. Fact checkers do their usual fact checking while also restricted by various kinds of third-party contract arrangements with Facebook who funds many of these fact checking initiatives and also the creative industries advertising and public relations have tried to refuse oversight and regulation because it might hurt their bottom line. So many of us to me have become too invested in doing business as usual. And I hope with the many minds in the room today in the webinar, I hope we can have an open conversation for what new creative collaborations and interventions might look like. And for those who might want to get in touch with various ideas, you can tweet at me at Jonathan underscore C underscore Ong. I'm also happy to answer your questions or comments about my presentation through Twitter as well. So I think it's interesting as well, it's an idea of influence industry and what we call disinformation for hire is having more visibility and there's more interest in discussions about this. And I think we need to study this further. We need to follow the money trail. We need to hold responsible the politicians and their chief of staff and their strategist, but also entire industries that are invested in keeping the system at place. So let's try now to understand and have a more nuanced understanding of what a political troll is and how one can get recruited into troll work. So as a background, I'm a sociologist and communication researcher. And for me, I was really interested in first of all, the 2016 elections and the role social media played in the 2016 elections. So many of us here are communication teachers and I love nothing in your term that technological determinism. For those not knowing, this is a kind of perspective that you assign great power on to the medium or a specific platform. So and this is something that we try to challenge and a sociologist, an ethnographer will try to challenge that media, any kind of device or platform is embedded in society and ordinary people have agency. So I actually don't agree with headlines and sensationalist reporting that, you know, assign blame on to Facebook. Now Facebook ruined democracy in a very top down kind of way. So for me, it's important to understand Facebook's role in the elections and the political process, but in dynamic relation to broader culture, systems and organizations. So the background of 2016 study, which is entitled architects of network disinformation behind the scenes of troll accounts and fake news production in the Philippines is the teams, groups of people who collaborate for a political campaign. And this is ethnographically inspired. So we actually interviewed the political campaigners for politicians who ran for national level posts, but also for local level posts. And the starting point of our interviews was how does a digital campaign work in 2016. So we did not start with troll or hire troll. And having that open discussion at the beginning enabled us to see, oh, there is like a systematic hierarchy here. And we need to understand the nuances of this. So over in the chat later on, I will post links to the report, which is available for free download. Architects of Network Disinformation is open access, along with other research of mine, which I insist should be open and widely available for Filipino teachers and educators and students. So this study is primarily an analysis of disinformation as business. It's a product of collaboration. It's a product of competition. It's based on interviews with workers. And we were concerned with how all of this works, who trolls are, and what are their moral justifications? How do these people sleep at night? The fact that this is what they're doing, that this is what they're doing. The argument of this report is that troll, busting, and hunting should not be focused on lower level workers, but we need to understand the people at the top. And as you can see in the infographic of our study, there's a clear hierarchy here. And we need to understand that we have to hold accountable the most responsible, which is the political client, the politician, the political elite. They're the ones who need a campaign team. They're the ones who had had to sign off on this kind of influence operation. Usually it could be about to improve their image. Sometimes it could be to do a smear campaign to attack their opponent. The political client interfaces, meaning the discussion, the negotiation is the chief architect of this information. Usually it's somebody from advertising or public relations. These are people who are expert in branding, in corporate branding. But during election season, it's high season for new kinds of opportunities, including being consultants for political clients. And depending on their objective, they will assemble their click army. This would include digital influencers, which includes key opinion leaders or celebrities. We know bloggers or queen or purveyors of fake news. They're the key opinion leader. We know them. At the same time, they have anonymous influencers or pseudo accounts or alter accounts. These are the meme accounts, anonymous quote accounts who got love quotes, but sometimes they promote politicians positively. Sometimes they attack them and they will poke fun at arrival politicians. Underneath them would be the community level fake account operator. And the whole objective of these groups of workers is to amplify the reach of what influencers post. They create what we call in our study illusions of engagement. They share seed into close groups, into messaging apps. So they infiltrate close groups online. So a lot of troll busting and naming and shaming happens at the level of the troll account operator at the bottom. But actually, the people at the top have not yet been held accountable. And I want us to discuss why. As you can see as well in this hierarchy, my hierarchy of people who are paid, and then there's a thin line that separates them from what we call the voluntary people. Those who share this info, these could be grassroots intermediaries. These are the political fans and fan page moderators. And of course, the general public will take this information narratives forward, sometimes in unpredictable ways. So this is the whole architecture of network disinformation. Politicians, they sell their services to the highest bidder. So this is a whole unregulated industry and they insist on being unregulated. We're really part of corporate marketing. We would rather be shrouded in secrecy, just like how shampoo brands or soft drink brands and their campaigns are not regulated. In the political realm, they also insist on not being regulated. And I would argue, no, you should be regulated because what you do has real consequences to the political process, to the quality of our political discourse. So what are the main arguments for us to discuss here? So on one hand, nobody is a troll. And on the other, everyone is a troll. And I sometimes wonder, useful by your term that role because it seems like a catch all in it's not specific enough, right? So for the person at the top, in a way, they're the head troll, but you never call them that. They're called advertising executives. They're called PR mavens. They're called crisis managers. And these strategies are often paid alumsum, often on a short term project based contract. And they're paid out directly by a politician or sometimes even through an intermediary. So in our 2019 study, we found examples of a political strategist completely funded by a business person who wants a local politician to win because may invested in a business interests for this local politician to win for a mayoral post. So again, there's a lack of transparency here. Is it even ethical that this strategist is working without real accountability? So what about money and finances? So in 2016, we uncovered that a three month gig promise of strategies to their client, we will make one Twitter trending hashtag trend nationally on Philippines Twitter. And this costs three million pesos. On one hand, you think of a big money at the same time, three million pesos. That's also just three TV ads on prime time. So in a way, it's also peanuts, right? So in digital campaigning was seen in 2016-2019 as a cost saving mechanism. But it's really more expensive to do your campaign on TV. But now think about 2022, most money would be pivoting to digital. Wala ng EBS-EBN, mas mahirap na mag grassroots baranggay level campaigning. A lot of those money will shift online and it's hard to monitor online advertising or influencer marketing. Number three, the strategist assembles what they call digital support workers to create or maintain supplemental pages. Ito yung nasa contrata. So when they talk to a politician, you're going to pay me and I will pay five digital support workers to produce 20 supplemental pages. So euphemism lang ito for fake account operator and supplemental pages is in many ways a fake news website. It's a repository for particular content that will try to look authentic or organic. But the main aim is to seed narratives in service of a political client. So what I'm most concerned with, especially for the college students listening into this webinar, younger workers are enlisted to work in campaigns that they did not initially sign up for. So when they sign up to work for a politician, they sign up to become a legislative staff member. When they enlist for an advertising agency, their official title is Graphic Designer, Social Media Community Manager, or Writer. During election season, however, and here I also think about how Filipino values of Paki Kisama, na parang kuy election season, parang makisama ka naman, let's try to support our political client. Merend tayong client nasi na serve or if you're working for a politician, sometimes the chief of staff will say, mawa walan ka ng trabaho kumatalo tayo. So it's time for you to create fake accounts. So there's real stories in our work where we interviewed younger workers who felt really ashamed, who felt really embarrassed, who felt that they were exploited to become a fake account operator. But again, that was not their title. That was not what they signed up for. So in many ways, our study was arguing nobody is a full-time troll. You get into troll work on a gig basis. It's something short-term. It's not your full-time job. It does not define your identity. And in many ways, this kind of project-based arrangement enables moral displacement. Hindi naman ako yung troll. Mai ibang mas responsible for trolling. So we argue in our report, we need to discuss ethics so much more. We need to also empower younger people to speak out in these kinds of arrangements. So just to conclude my presentation, I just have two slides left. I think globally, there is more interest to talk about disinformation for hire or influence for hire. Buzzfeed has done a lot of reports that also use Philippines as an example. The story of Cambridge Analytica about how this data analytics firm sells their services to different politicians around the world. The journalist Warren de Guzman has exposed the work arrangements of twin-mark media and how profitable clickbait websites are. And clickbait websites don't really care who is the politician as long as there are many clicks and it generates revenue for them. So there are many different ways in which people can profit from fake news, from producing different kinds of campaigns. And for me, the idea of fake news or disinformation is sometimes very limiting. Because when we talk about disinformation, it's often kind of just about the content. Is it a lie or is it true? Did this happen or not happen? But this information is a practice. It's an industry, right? And you can do influence operations for positive, but also for negative ways of campaigning. And we need to have more transparency and accountability to this. So for me, it's really less about deep platforming. Union usapan palagi dito sa United States in the wake of Donald Trump and how he incited violence in the context of the Capitol attacks January 6th. I think in the Philippines and many Southeast Asian countries, also African and Latin American countries, our political system is not clearly defined by left and right. And a lot of these kinds of influence ops or disinfo operations are about private actors, private entrepreneurs, who are doing this for extra money, for those at the top and for those at the bottom. Added income then think of the many creative workers, the many digital workers, na wala ng trabaho. And now digital is like a big booming industry. And this is like seen as an added parang a sideline gig on top of their regular gig. So finally, and I will end with this set of questions that I hope we can have an open discussion about. And I really look forward to my colleagues and the teachers and students to talk about what we can all do, whole of society approach to fighting fake news that parang lahat tayo from different sectors have a responsibility to this. So first about the industry, how can you have more discussions of ethics within the industry? How can you assign accountability to the strategists or the masterminds of campaigns? Do industry black lists work? I think we have seen examples of how call out culture, when it comes to influencers, just thinking of nas daily recently, deba na parang could that kind of approach work na parang oh itong influencer na to palagi anan papabayad for a politician. Does that even work? I honestly am not sure and I would love to hear from you folks. Onto the journalists here. How can journalists write about perpetrators such that they do not end up popularizing the bad actor? So for me, in a way par na ging celebrity si Nick Gabonada that palagi siang nagpapa interview sa local press but also to the BBC, to the Guardian, etc. And he actually ended up getting more publicity and attention and more political clients as a result. So I don't want journalists to play into the influencer and strategists own game to seek out attention. How can we practice strategic silence na parang actually wag na lang natin silang pangalanan? Sometimes to talk about the industry as a system rather than as personalities might be better and I would love to hear from what people think here. I am so concerned about number three, how can we embolden our youth to bravely speak out against business as usual industry practices? When I talk to younger people and younger creatives in advertising and PR, they are the ones who are most critical about their bosses, about the past elections and how they felt compelled and in a way pressured to do memes for politicians. And they are the ones who are much more willing to discuss this in public rather than the people at the top. Number four for the lawyers here. How can we anticipate or mitigate legislation that might do more harm than good? So think about the anti-terror bill, any kind of anti-fake news bill that will actually end up just targeting the opposition, that will do more harm than good. To the many teachers and communication professors, my colleagues in this call, how can we teach and write about trolls such that we understand them not as other but in a way as kind of like us. So we need to understand how trolling is not something that exceptional evil villains do and these are larger than life people. These are people we have no connections with. It's actually more likely that we know someone who has actually done this. So thank you so much and I look forward to all your questions and comments. Can we ask Niki to please unmute. Okay, so thank you very much Dr. Ong for your very comprehensive presentation on political trolling and troll farms in the Philippines. I think our reactors are ready to jump into the discussion. We have four reactors this morning and we'll call each of them one by one. Our first reactor is a co-founder of Verafiles, a non-stop, non-profit, independent media organization. She's an associate professor of journalism at the UP College of Mass Communication in Dileman, where she teaches investigative journalism, data journalism, and packed checking as well as gives training in local universities and abroad. Please welcome Professor Yvonne Chuwa. Good morning Professor Chuwa. Can you briefly give us our viewers a backgrounder on check.ph and if there are any plans for reconvening for the May 2022 national elections? Thank you for asking that. Check.ph which Dr. Perna mentioned earlier is the first collaborative fact-checking project in the country. I was one of the coordinators of this project. The groundbreaking initiative was actually the brainchild of the UP system which successfully brought together three universities at 11 news organizations specifically to fact check the 2019 midterm elections. So we have UP at the Neonazal. In addition to that we have AVS-EBN, Phil Star, the Philippine Star Interaction Rappler, Verafiles, CLTV 36, DCUP Probe, and Baguio Midland Career. I hope I remembered all of them. The partners essentially share their respective election-related fact checks in the repository on a website and Facebook and Twitter accounts to make them more accessible to the public especially to voters. Where possible they came together to cross-check plans and on election day, Check.ph set up a pop-up newsroom to do same-day fact checking. I think as for the question, will Check.ph be convened for next year's elections? I think it's a question that I've been repeatedly asked. At the moment I really don't have the answer but what I do know is Check.ph has created a template for collaborative fact check that can be replicated. It has also more important demonstrated the willingness of media organizations to set aside, meet their rivalries, and band together to fight a common enemy. In this case, in the case of the 2019 elections, electoral disinformation. I think this makes a great segue to your reaction to the presentation of Dr. Jonathan Ong. Please go ahead. Thank you, Veronica. Dr. Ong's semil work on political trolling in the Philippines while it's a stark reminder to all of us of the difficult tasks that crack against digital disinformation and online abuse especially during elections. What are we up against? In the Philippines, we're looking, now looking at the massive disinformation infrastructure designed, built, directed, and maintained as Dr. Ong points out, people adapt and quick at innovation. What we also need to remember is political trolling persists even in between elections. It doesn't take a break. In September 2020 or last September, for example, in the midst of the pandemic and still a good 20 months away from May 2020 to elections, Facebook took down two networks of Philippines-related fake accounts, one originating in China and the other in the Philippines that had links to our military and police. There was clear evidence of both positive and negative campaigning that Jonathan mentioned a while ago. Positive campaigning supported both Duterte and his daughter Sarah's potential run in next year's elections and military activities against terrorism. Negative campaigning that targeted political opposition, youth activists, critics, the media, and the communist bloc. Of course, we're all too familiar with the continuous trollish actions of certain government agencies or personalities through their social media accounts and strategically amplified by their networks. To be sure, political disinformation and trolling are not the sole preserve of the state or those in power as Jonathan has pointed out. In the 2019 elections, as again Jonathan has observed in his research, some in the political opposition also tried their hand at it. But the midterm elections also showed that the battle of the trolls was pretty lopsided in favor of the incumbent, which not only enjoyed the head start but also had and still has and will have at its disposal more resources. So where are we today? Less than a year away from elections, we're already seeing the signs of what is about to happen and will happen again. Expectedly, the volume of trolling is growing, including vitriol against those non-administration politicians currently faring very well in candidate preference surveys. Again, we are witnessing social media accounts with big and small following alike already being renamed to promote potential candidates in next year's elections at the expense of others. One particular account that fascinated my students in fact-checking class was a Facebook page created 10 years ago called I Love Taylor Swift. It was renamed QCA Books for Sale in 2017 for commercial reasons. Then last June 17, it changed its name. This time to do their desupporters and its handle became their only for 2022. It began uploading pro-administration content, including fabricated quotes. Beyond Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Instagram, which trolls have made inroads as shown in the 2019 elections, I'm sure you are like me also watching how disinformation and trolling would play out on TikTok. And as Jonathan asked, who will get recruited to troll them in 2022? As again, Dr. Ohn points out, fighting disinformation and trolling should be a whole of society approach. Where does fact-checking and fact-checkers fit in? When political trolls utter false or altered facts, in particularly those that go viral and are virulent, expect fact-checkers to readily buckle down to work and debunk them and perhaps even help audience learn more about the source of information. A number of studies elsewhere have shown that exposure to fact-checks results in people updating their beliefs about the accuracy of claim or statement as well as increases how accurately people are able to evaluate factual information. But it does not necessarily influence their political convictions. But fact-checking has its own limitations. It goes without saying that it is restricted to verifying facts. Opinion falls outside the purview of fact-checks. Thus, when trolls spew out inflammatory, offensive comments without accompanying facts, fact-checkers would have another think. That's why the infamous Ocho Direcho Inodoro post and comments in 2019, no matter how obnoxious they were, went unchecked. Hence, in addition to fact-checking, other investigative techniques need to be employed to dig deep and uncover the perils of political trolling. As some enterprising fact-checkers, journalists, researchers, and experts like Dr. Ong have done. Of course, one of the biggest challenges staring us in the face is unmasking the troll behind the trolls or the biggest troll of them all. Let me end by saying that despite its limitations, fact-checking has been identified as a good means to combat this information as it involves deploying a range of skills that help people evaluate content, source, and evidence, and certainly aid in critical thinking. UNESCO, in fact, has included fact-checking among the competencies to tackle this information and hate speech in its latest edition of the Model Media and Information Literacy Curriculum for Educators and Learners. The hope is that fact-checking will no longer be just undertaken by a few, but will be routinely done by most people. Thank you very much, Professor Tua, for your insights on the importance of fact-checking and verifying sources of information in order to prevent the spread of digital disinformation. Our next reactor has been a reporter, writer, and producer for ABS-CBN and ANC for over 15 years. He is a pioneering member of the award-winning ABS-CBN data analytics team and a veteran business news journalist. Please welcome to the webinar Warren Augustus Dantez de Guzman. Thank you, and good morning to everybody. Good morning to Ms. Jimenez and to my fellow reactors. And good morning to Dr. Ong and Dr. Pernia. I want to talk about... Before you start, I wrote an exclusive and in-depth report on TwinMark Media in 2019. For some who may not be familiar with it, can you encapsulate the significance of the banning of the digital marketing group from Facebook? Yes, it was a big deal at the time in 2019. I think it was the first action of Facebook in terms of cracking down on these kinds of operators of fake accounts in the Philippines. But what I want to point out is in TwinMark, really it's the money trail, and Dr. Ong shared the headline that we had for that report that we did. TwinMark earned millions of dollars, hundreds of millions of pesos, from their work. And when we spoke with some of the companies' officials and their people there, these people saw it really as an economic enterprise, a way to make money. They didn't care what kind of information they were putting out. Let's talk about white trolls and black trolls or people who attack opponents or people who build up their respective candidates. TwinMark, the people we spoke with, they didn't discern, they just followed orders. They were in it for the money. And these people, well, they had no access to other income opportunities. Fresh graduates were offered salaries above minimum wage, above what even call centers were giving, and call centers were already paying a lot for entry-level jobs. So it's lucrative. And the platforms made it lucrative. They make it lucrative. They reward pages with large amounts of followers, influencers with huge amounts of followers. And that's really where the money is coming from. So I think this gives a great context to your reaction to the presentation of Dr. Jonathan Ong. So please share with us your thoughts with our audience. Yes, Rutia, Dr. Ong has been doing great work in terms of researching on information, disinformation. He's been doing great work also with his colleague, Dr. Cabanez. I mean, he hit it right on the nail, on the nose, regarding how there are several levels of trolls, so to speak. But I want to go back to his point where he said that he doesn't hold Facebook completely responsible for the situation. I would say yes and no. To his point, blaming Facebook is like blaming printing presses, or you go to an older reference, like the town square where people go to, and that's where people talk. They gossip. They're like, he's going to should we blame them for the conversations that happened because of the material they put out, or because of the platform they provide? No, they have no hand in that, but they made it possible. So they do have the ability to say no if they believe that some of the information that they're printing is wrong. And if somebody in the town square is absolutely saying falsehoods, they could prevent that person from talking. So in a sense, Facebook can be or is a bit responsible, but they've also been doing that. They've been de-platforming, as Dr. Ong has been mentioning. I think that is an important role to play for Facebook, fact-checking as well. They've hired a lot of third parties to do this, like Rappler, Mr. Rivas will talk about that later on. But again, the way that they reward influencers with huge followings regardless of their content, that enables this entire situation. Of course, we want to reward people who are good at social media, because in reality, it's a great platform. It's a great opportunity for some people. They won't have any other means of earning the kind of money that they do as influencers without Facebook or without the other social media platforms. And we want that because that's good for the economy, that's good for people, it uplifts lives. We just don't want them to be doing it in such a way that it hurts our democracy, it hurts the country, it hurts other people. How do we do that? It's really hard. It's a question of limiting freedom of speech. But again, de-platforming people who operate, like as mentioned, TwinMart operate fake accounts just to create the illusion that there are so many people listening to them or following them or who believe in them, that's something that should continue. Regarding why people do this, again, Dr. Ong was absolutely right. People do this for the money. And I would say that right now, in this current environment in the Philippines, we will probably see a lot more trolls for hire, for lack of a better term, because unemployment is high at over 7%. We're in a pandemic, so many businesses are closed down again because of ECQ. If the young people, there are no opportunities or their value is viewed as diminished because of the education crisis, where the last two years, we haven't been able to really generate graduates that have the same kind of training as those graduates from the years before because there's no face-to-face learning. Where are they going to look for jobs? The elections, in a sense, vote buying in the Philippines is a real problem. But now, because of social media, because of this phenomenon of trolling and disinformation, the both buyers actually have a way of tracking where their money is going. If their money is actually performing for them, they'll give out money to people to act as trolls. And if they don't post anything, then they can say, hey, you're not doing your part. They can call them out. In the past, they'll just have to hope that the people vote for their candidate. But now, they actually can see, can track the work. So the situation of high unemployment and high poverty, we don't even have the latest poverty figures. The latest data from the government is dated. But that situation, I'm certain, will create more active trolls in the future. I mean, when we talk to Twinmark, there are so many ways of recruiting trolls. And again, Dr. Ong, he did very well in explaining these different levels. But there are certain levels where one incident where, of course, this won't be possible in the current environment because of ECQ. But we were told that a head troll would just go into an internet cafe and just tell everybody there, we'll pay for your internet the rest of the day. You just need to do this. And that's in the internet cafes and the outskirts of the city, retro Manila, for them, that's a lot of money already. And of course, they'll do it right away. It's a no-brainer for them. That won't happen now because they can't gather in those certain areas. But people with access to internet or they can do it in those close groups. The internet just enables so much of this. On Dr. Ong's question, the journalist's role, it's tough because when trolls target journalists, they prey on emotions and they want to egg you on to elicit any kind of response. The journalist's role for me is not to engage. Absolutely not. The role is to be dependable repository of facts, to be consistent and to be unbiased, to always have context. But honestly, if you look at that kind of journalism, it's kind of bland. First world countries, they have news organizations that seem to Filipinos very bland because they just report straight facts. But they are able to continue operations because they serve as a repository of facts which educated individuals can count on. They can always go back to the website of Bloomberg for hard facts on economic data or even politics and that sort of thing. Movements in commodity prices, it's very easy in business because everything is quantifiable. But in politics, it's much harder. But data actually allows us to do a better job of that. Simple word counts of speeches or transcripts can tell you about a politician's promises a year before and whether or not he's been edging or inching away from those in later speeches. But again, it just falls on being a repository of data. And unfortunately, that's really bland. It's really boring. And in an environment where it's really for profit, it's hard to balance it out. It's very difficult at this point, especially now that essentially the role of the journalist is no longer to report. Social media has made everybody reporters. It's really the role of journalists to explain and to provide context. Regarding what we need to do, I'd like to congratulate the organizers, PCS and UP, because this is exactly what we need to do. Education is the only real solution against misinformation and disinformation. You don't want to clap down on freedom of speech. You want to make sure that everybody on the internet will be able to decide for themselves what is right and what is wrong, what is accurate and what is false. That's the only way to fight it. Sadly, the level of misinformation and disinformation in the Philippines is an indicator of our level of education as a people. We need to raise that level. And the elections are next year, so we really can't count on that happening anytime soon, but we have to move forward with it and we have to keep at it so that as a people we're more educated and we actually seek out information based on factual information, not just things that are clickbait, that interest you because of the headlines or stuff like that. We need to educate ourselves better. I'll end there. Thank you very much, Warren, for your incisive analysis. It's really sad that this pandemic has exacerbated the trolling situation. Our next reactor reports on macroeconomy, government finance, companies and agriculture for a rappler. He hosts the evening newscasts of Rapper the Evening Rapp with Ralph Rivas. Please welcome Ralph Rivas. Hi, thanks so much for having me. Good morning, Ralph. So as a business reporter, you always follow the money. What can you say about troll farms as business enterprises in the Philippines? With a lot of Filipinos who lost jobs or experienced a decline in income due to the pandemic, this easy money must be a tempting lure to put food on the table. Well, actually Veronica, here's an interesting thing. Days before this forum, I already received a text message saying, kumita habang na sa bahay lang, be an onliners like us, onliners. Click link below. I haven't clicked the link because it's scary kumano kaya ng nandun sa link, because it's a virus or whatever. But this is the second message that I got, actually, trying to recruit me to be an onliners, quote-unquote, my estalaga. So I don't know, with this pandemic, I'm pretty sure some people have clicked that, people that lost jobs. But just from your introduction about me, yes, I'm a journalist, if this is journalist, I want to establish my biases there. Well, first of all, I'm a journalist that follows the money. So I want to emphasize that for my reaction in a bit. The great perspective on the topic, all of us want to know how much does a troll make, and how much is the mastermind of these sub-trolls. Please go ahead and share your insights, Glyn, from the presentation of Dr. Ong with our audience. Okay, so I think dito kami medyo mag, ito yung isa sa mga interesting points that Jonathan pointed out. He talked about technological determinism or platform. I mean, we should be more new ones about it, but it's hard for me as a journalist not to blame Big Tech on that. But again, in Rappler, there are different views. This is my personal view on it. Because when I started being a journalist in 2010 after graduating a degree in sociology, I kind of imbibed the feeling that journalists are gatekeepers. We filter out information that's relevant for the public and which are just noise. And then years and years later, here comes all the trolls sabotaging the coverage and our time is running out. So if we're going to fact check, rather than looking for sources, talking to people, that's really a shift when everything happened. We need to, journalists really had to step up their game. But I want to talk more about tech companies. Because as I mentioned earlier, gatekeeping powers came from journalists before. But now, journalists have more or less lost it to technology companies. But at the same time, tech companies advocated their responsibility and did not seem to understand that information is a public good. So I was critical on tech companies because it's hard not to put it on Silicon Valley. Because for instance, there have been reports, this has been reported by BuzzFeed through leaks saying that Facebook has been aware of people who are organizing the capital attack in the US. So what more, they already know about people organizing potential harmful events on Facebook. And yet, what did they do? It took them days. And I have several friends that work on Facebook in different parts of the world. And they were saying, I mean, there's internal drama in Facebook. And you can see the struggles there that they're also trying to figure out what they're going to do about it. But at the same time, something viral, it's also a moneymaker for them. Also, I'm not sure anymore if Facebook holds onto this logic that they're mere bookshelves. And they do not, they're not responsible for content. It's basically just media platforms, individual people, organizations that are the books. And they're just bookshelves for it. They're not, so I guess there needs to be an evolution on that part. Also, again, emphasizing on tech companies, the spread of content, you know, for me, remains it's quite decoupled from ethics. I don't know how to make sense of it. Can Facebook do anything about this from an ethical stand view, making technology ethical. That's another question that I want to just throw it out there. Also, Jonathan mentioned about Nick Gabunada. Yes and no, it has to be on a bigger perspective or systematic on the matter. But at the same time, it's hard not to talk about Nick Gabunada, especially if he's back in government as a consultant in the Department of Finance. So he's definitely a personality that we need to monitor, especially everything that he has contributed in whatever ecosystem that we are experiencing at the moment. Finally, I'd like to end my reaction that for me, it is not a free speech issue. It's not the fault of its users. Again, I'm sorry, but my bias really is where the man is at, where the money goes and who is the new gatekeeper or I don't know how to call it if it's a gatekeeper or not. But these platforms, for me, have really made the worst of ourselves creating emergent behavior that feeds of violence, fear, feeds of uncertainty, especially in this pandemic. The more isolated you are, the more vulnerable you are to conspiracy and for trolls to exploit that fact. And I'm just really afraid what will happen next in the coming years, more people being radicalized through systemic trolling and tech companies being behind or not behind in the sense that they are lagging in how to take action in this. So that's it. Thank you. Thank you, Ralph. I just wanted to ask one quick question. Have you been ever accused of spreading fake news? Of course, many times. I don't know how to count. It's hard to combat, but I guess one of my shields on that attack is that I'm with a reputable news organization. Because if I'm a nobody not affiliated with a news organization, even though I'm reporting factual information, that's going to be harder for me to defend. But there has to be some sort of system as well to keep you in check and have this credibility shield. That makes sense. Yeah, it's probably difficult to be a journalist nowadays. Thank you very much, Ralph. And our final reactor was the former vice president for academic affairs of our Eastern University. He's currently an officer of the Philippine Association of Communication Educators or PACE and a full-time PhD student at the University of Auckland in New Zealand. Please welcome Professor Joven Castro. Hi, good morning. I'm honored to be part of this conversation. Good morning, Professor Castro. Before you give your reaction to the presentation of Dr. Ong, can you quickly let the audience know how PACE contributes to solving the problem of digital disinformation in the Philippines? We regularly hold an annual conference, a research conference, and in 2018 we held a conference that tackled post-truth, how we sharpen competencies. And then in 2019, we had a conference on confluence and convergence. So essentially, there was a discussion on the dual role of trolls. Is it just for trolling or is it also for freedom of expression? We also hold regular webinar series and workshops in cooperation with Chen and other media organizations. Those are wonderful projects on media and information literacy by PACE. I know a lot of your members are watching us today and they want to hear from you. Please go ahead with your reaction to Dr. Ong's presentation from the point of view of a Communication Educator. Thank you. Dr. Ong's presentation has exposed the cloaks of digital disinformation during Philippine elections. As a Communication Educator, I am extremely bothered that this information has become more professionalized in structure and sneakier in rollout strategy. I hope none of our former students have engaged in this reckless act primarily for money. Otherwise, all the more that we, Communication Educators, must activate our moral responsibility to act. The disinformation models that Dr. Ong presented by implication have trivialized deliberative discourse. Deliberative discourse is a productive process of deliberating, arguing, reaching compromises about how we wish to live better together. I believe that this course is trivialized when the intent is to deceive and win or influence, not engage in conversations leading to collective solutions. In fact, this intent breeds the unhealthy culture of cancelling out. What kind of discourse do we create if winning means destroying somebody else's reputation? Cancelling out does not aim to create meeting points. It focuses on the clash, not consensus. But shouldn't we aim for a greater purpose? Unfortunately, this is not in sight. Social media's private groups have served as echo chambers where opposing perspectives are not factored in. As Dr. Ong pointed out, these groups nurture bashing contrarian views and hyper partisanship, and I say these also breed cancer culture. Then we ask, Maraming Lumalaban para sa mga politico, Pero Sino Ang Lumalaban Para Sa Bansa. Why have we reached this point? Political analysts argued that this information is probably a symptom of the long-standing elitist democracy. This means political dynasties and business elites have varying control levels of the government. The 2016 elections was considered a protest vote against elitist democracy that had failed to provide inclusive economic growth, and where public and social services are dismal. This information agents pander on this sentiment with the narrative that change is coming. But where are we now? Political divide has deepened. For me, nothing much has changed in the quality of life and governance. Alarmingly, political elites are proposing to lift term limits, and a new greed of business elites are surfacing. Finally, Dr. Ong's process-oriented whole of society recommendations are indeed the way to go. As a teacher, although this is a long cut, I'd like to add that schools should laymanize the concept and practice of democracy. Starting at the basic education level, we must immerse students in democratic practices that will become their way of life, such as listening to competing opinions, consensus building, transparency and accountability, love of country. We must teach the importance of civil societies, including the adversarial nature of the media. Media must continue to report anomalies in the government, and the electorate and our students must see this favorably as a social responsibility role. Further, I hope that the MIL curriculum for senior high school will focus more on news and information literacy, such as using multiple credible sources and being evidence-based, and reduce the emphasis on teaching the use of digital media for production work. The FU Department of Communications Mantra is my alum, my paki alum. I hope we can work together so that our students will not become my alum, pero, valam paki alum. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Professor Castro. The role of communication educators is truly essential in the fight against digital disinformation. So we have heard from all our speakers. May I now ask everyone to please switch on your video so we may begin our panel discussion. Let us welcome back our main presenter, Dr. Jonathan Ong and our reactors, Professor Yvon Chua, Warren de Guzman, Ralph Rivas, and Professor Joven Castro. We will also be joined by Dr. Elena Perna, who gave the opening remarks at the top of the program. Before we begin, let us first take a look at how our audience answered our fun mini quiz. Give three words to describe a troll. Okay, so the bigger words are the ones with more votes, and we see annoying. Oh, annoying. I think it's a manipulative. Those are the two biggest words. And there's aggressive. There's disinformation and illogical. Deceiving. All right. So, and then our second question is controls, influence the outcome of the national elections. 143 people answered yes, and two people answered no. Okay, so thank you very much. May we have, may we ask comments from our panel on the poll that we're doing? Can you comment on that? May we ask first, Professor Yvon Chua? I think the reactions were spot on. Pretty much we're able to gauge the characteristics of polls, including being illogical, manipulative, aggressive, and so good job everyone. Okay, may we call on Ralph Rivas? Yeah, I agree. I think these reactions were under the moon. Brings me some hope that people are aware, pretty aware, and are constantly looking for, you know, making sense and looking for answers and how we should act on the issues on polls. Warren? Yeah, you know, annoying, aggressive. Yes, that can describe the trolls. But again, we have to understand where these people are coming from. If this person is uneducated and isn't aware or how or isn't able to express himself or herself in an articulate way, then he probably will come out as annoying or aggressive. That's the only way he can argue. So it's important to always take into account where these people are coming from. Some of these people sincerely believe in what they're arguing about. They just don't understand the entire situation, or they lack context, or they fail to see the big picture, right? So you, rather than attack them, especially if they're real people, you know, the fake accounts are some different things altogether. But if they're real people, we shouldn't view them as people who are annoying or people who should be banned. We should view them as people who should be educated. Okay, Professor Castro? Well, I'm happy that we have recognized the problem, at least in the circle. The challenge is how do we expand this to those who don't belong to our circle? Otherwise, this pursuit is just within our silos as well. All right, Dr. Ong? Yeah, on the second question of influencing the election. So I think for those communication professors and communication students here, I think we're also quite careful when we talk about influence or effects, right? Whether ads have a certain kind of behavioral effect, researchers, communication researchers are often quite cautious about that. We'd love to kind of nuance this discussion that there are social and cultural effects. It might reinforce perspectives, it might embolden you to act like a fan of a politician, but it doesn't necessarily just distill into whether you vote or not for one candidate or the other. It's something more social, more participative, right? And it's something that happens over time. So troll and their influence on the outcome, was it through a troll's one post, through their one meme? Is it the practice of trolling? Yeah, as an ethnographer, I like to get into the granular details. So yeah, for any comm student here, thinking about media effects, right? All right, thank you very much to our panel and to all our viewers who have participated in our mini quiz. We will be having a post test later on just to assess if our audience have increased their knowledge from this webinar. We're very fortunate to have with us a very distinguished panel of experts. So I will pose a very difficult question to everyone. Are you ready? After everything that you have heard this morning, how do we take the power back from the political trolls in order to elevate the level of public discourse on social media? Would you like to answer that? Maybe we can start with Dr. Furnia? That is a very difficult question. But I think we should all take into account the nuances of the presentation of Dr. Ong and the reactions of everyone. How do we take back? All right, Dr. Ong just a little while ago was pointing out that communication researchers, and I consider myself one of them, we look into the granular details. Yeah, there is a there's evidence that yeah, they're going, political trolling does have an impact, but on whom? And more importantly, how can, what other strategies may be implemented so that we can, well, we can contradict it? I get to add one more thing. The comments a little while ago were from our mentor. We're kind of disheartening, but also kind of spot on, which just goes to show the importance of what many people have said right now. It's not just an all of society approach, but it is also a lifelong approach. Education in the area in this aspect of literacy, in this new kind of literacy, must be something that is inserted into both basic education, into tertiary education, you know, and importantly into the little non-formal aspects of education. So, you know, there's a big battle to get back, you know, citizen control of their vote. Okay, but what's important is that we all realize that we do have agency. All right. Thank you, Dr. Pernia. Maybe call on Professor Chua. Professor Chua, are you there? Sorry, I'm trying to unmute myself. Like Dr. Pernia said, this is one of the toughest questions that you'll be asking, but I suppose from the discussion, the presentation, John's presentation, as well as subsequent reactions, we'll see that the whole issue should also focus on the demand and the supply side, both the demand and the supply side, aside from product itself. So that's something to think about how to address the demand side, owners, producers, and then of course, the supply. I was also thinking about the second item about elevating the level of public discourse on social media. Since trolls seem to be like, we'll be there for quite some time, it will be a reality, we'll have them with us for, I don't know, maybe for forever, since we've had trolls even offline before, we have police above us. I suppose if you own a page, I mean for practical reasons, if you own a page or a social media account, you can set a policy on trolling or against trolling, so that if you have a reason to put out the person who violates that, I have a reason to put out the person who violates that policy. But I'd also like to believe that we should not stoop down to the level of the trolls, but always take the high road. That means keep the discussion issue oriented and fact driven as some of the reactors pointed out earlier. Now, what should you do it in the same post, or should you create a new thread? That's worth thinking about. It really depends on the person. All right, thank you Professor Chua, how about Ralph? It's so, I don't know, I mean it's one of those questions that are, how do, it's really, sorry, I'm still trying to make sense because there's a lot of a lot of issues, right? But all I just want to say is that again going back to my assertion, that it's really, I mean it's going to be something that we dance with, I mean for in the next decade or so. These trolls will, if it's unless these trolls will be there, unless there's going to be some, I don't know, some social awakening for them saying that, oops, what we're doing is immoral or whatever, and we should stop it and learn, get money somewhere else, do something else, right? But that's very unlikely. But so again my bias is that it's on tech companies, it's on Silicon Valley, that's the battle is right there. The battle is fought internally and externally. Whether or not the oversight board that's being, that's currently in the works will help. There are lots of issues that altogether are quite complicated and we don't have enough time to discuss. But yeah, that's my take. All right. Thank you, Ralph. Maybe fallen Warren. We have to understand that, you know, this, like Dr. Chua mentioned, this isn't anything new. Propaganda is very old. It's just a, it's just been called different names. It's actually a military strategy, spreading lies to this heart and the enemy before a battle. It's that old. It's as old as warfare. The only real way to take back the power is to educate ourselves as so many have mentioned again and again here in this webinar. And yeah, that's really on you to do that, to improve yourself, improve those in your circle. And I, again, I like to congratulate the PCS because although we only have like around 500 participants here in this webinar right now live, we're live on YouTube. We don't know how many people that will reach it. It really multiplies the reach of what we're saying right now. So the real difference in propaganda or misinformation or disinformation right now is it has a powerful tool in the internet. You know, and we just have to recognize that, that it's amplified because of the reach of the internet. And the only real way to be able to discern what's true and what's false is to know the truth yourself. All right. Thank you, Warren. How about Professor Castro? It's a long talk for me. It's really education in the basic education level. In terms of elevating the quality of this course, I think that we should stop calling the trolls or anybody we assume to be doing so as Bobo or the third, it does not help at all in expanding the quality of this course. Rather, they will report and do the same thing. So that's the first one. The second one I think is for those education teachers in this forum, I hope you can volunteer in the public school system and share your knowledge about media and information literacy because sometimes the resources in the senior high school might not be enough and your expertise is needed to expand this influence. Because as I've said, in this room, we may understand each other, but we need to influence the others who are not in this room. And I think that's the challenge that we share what we learn here with those in the senior high school, assuming that they are still in the edotech component of this course. Thank you. Okay. Thank you, Professor Castro. How about Dr. Ong? Yeah. Thank you so much. So first, I'd like to echo what Professor Purnia said, is that we have agency. And I think that's such a great and empowering message to have that wherever we are, whether we're educators or younger people or creative workers looking for new work, we actually have agency. We can choose to participate, how we participate, and we can also decline and dismiss or block. And I think that's a very empowering position to be in, especially when we think about something as overwhelming as the disinformation crisis. So here I go back to the issue of platform agency and platform power. And here I do want to clarify my existing position. I'm not a Facebook apologist. I'm not letting them off scot-free. Like Facebook, hell yeah, we need to demand more accountability to Facebook. Whenever they do a platform takedowns, they take their sweet time to deplatform bad actors in the global south compared to what happens in Europe or the US. When they did that study that Professor Chua mentioned, exposing Chinese influence operations in one province in China, influencing Indonesian and Philippines political practice, you could tell that that research was for a US audience. They had no desire to be accountable to the Filipino citizens in the Filipino electoral process. They published that paper a whole year after our election. So I think they should be doing more. Facebook should be doing more. Twitter, YouTube, Viber, WeChat, all of these platforms are responsible. At the same time, we have capacity to also assign responsibility to local bad actors. And I think that's where most of my ethnographic research is trying to ground us in. Like, hey, policymakers in the ad industry, in the PR industry, also our lawmakers, we need to be holding these people into account as well. So for instance, we need to be looking at this information and how censorship could be used, right? Like in coordination with each other. So we see examples of anti-fake news laws. The anti-terror bill is one example or variation of this, right? But other countries like Singapore or Malaysia have their own legislations that are often only going to target the political opposition. So when our legislators start coming up with all of these kinds of legislative interventions, we need to be thinking about what is their motivation here? Should we mount an opposition to this kind of approach? And I think that puts agency down to the local level. For younger people as well, you do have agency. I think young people who are immersed in online subcultures, right? They are the first to see new trends that Instagram influencers, they're posting for various senators. Some of them are campaigning early. Various kinds of meme accounts. So young people are very much immersed in these online subcultures. Why don't you tweet about them? Why don't you call out these accounts and also allow wider sets of eyes and ears? So I think to monitor the information ecosystem. So I think we have so many choices actually. For us in how we can fight back and also develop strategies in various kinds of ways. All right. Thank you, Dr. Ong. We can see that there are a lot of trolls that are very aggressive. On the other hand, we have been experiencing a spiral of silence to where some people now remain silent about their opinions because they are afraid of being bashed, trolled or canceled by troll armies. How should the ordinary person handle trolls? Can we start with Dr. Fernia? You know, that's my question myself. Like many of you, I have received during since the lockdown, a lot of these messages that are apparently well troll like, if not actually trolls. And I've been asking the question, should I ignore them or should I directly answer them? My concern really is if I answer back, then they'll go, you know, if I respond, then they answer back. So that's also my question. But there's one comment that I want to link with this question. One of the, in the chat box, someone had said that teachers themselves, you know, are kind of worried about, you know, about expressing opinions. And so what the heck is academic freedom for if you have students there who are going to bash you. And so, you know, to me, it's max of, you know, the importance really of, you know, of informing, educating from a very, very young age, you know, our, you know, our population, our youth, you know, about the power that their cell phones may have and the power that they can misuse, you know. So it's kind of interactive. So I'm sorry, Veronica, I have no cogent answer to that question, because myself, you know, I am in a quandary. Okay, thank you, Dr. Purnia. Maybe we can ask who in our panelists would like to answer the question. Dr. Professor Castro? We say that do not act only when you are directly affected, even if you are not directly affected act. And that's precisely the point also when I say we must not have the spiral of silence, even if we are not directly affected. It's the, it's the trade off of a democratic society. Sometimes there is a tendency for us to shift our profile into private mode just so we can avoid trolls from attacking us. But if we care, I think for our country, that's the trade off. We must post, we must not be silent. As they say, the evil wants to reign because the good ones keep quiet. And my principle in argumentation is if somebody bashes you, still politely react to this person, and then call your friends privately, send them messages, please help me, and then continue the conversation without attacking the person. Because if you do, the person earns. But if you politely disagree, you create other conversations, I think that can help. It's a long battle, but at least don't keep quiet, don't be quiet. Thank you. Warren? Yeah, Professor Castro is absolutely right. This is democracy. That's part of it all. The spiral of silence though, that's not democratic at all. It's a chilling effect. It's very real. You see it in journalism with the attacks on traditional media. That is unwelcome. But dialogue, open dialogue with trolls, that is something that we have to do, even if it's painful. There was a comment in the chat box by Vida Sariano. She said that we lose friends by educating them and starting a dialogue that they very wrongly supported the candidate win in 2016. If they are really your friends, then you would power through that because even with our loved ones, we fight. And if you truly believe in what you're arguing about, then you would do your best, utmost best to convince them, especially if they are in the wrong. You want to be much of a friend if you allow them to think erroneously about certain things. Don't leave your friends hanging like that. If they're really your friends, if they're really your family, I've had that experience where a family member supported a candidate for all the wrong reasons. And now they regret their decision. It's a painful process, but that's democracy. We have to sit down and talk about it and argue about it, even if it's painful, even if it takes us forever to get this person to understand. Even if you create a lot of enemies, maybe temporary enemies, then afterwards they'll see the light. Okay. Thank you, Warren. Any more in our panelists? Hi, I want to talk. Yes. Yes. Yes. Actually, I have plenty of experience when it comes to, you know, getting enrolled. But what I do actually is I don't address them one-on-one. And when there are a lot of them, because I also consider those people that are just passing by on the timeline or maybe on the feed and might get influenced on these trolls. So I respond by posting something factual, something to put into context, whatever I put out. So I guess that's on a personal note. But I also want to mention that there's hope actually. The spiral of silence is true even before the pandemic. I mean, one is people are find it difficult to speak out, but also journalists find it difficult to ask the difficult questions when you, you know, especially if it's live on Facebook or Twitter, you know, if you ask them, you're going to want, you're going to be the one that's going to trigger a response. So it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's even more pronounced. But I also want to emphasize, emphasize that there's hope. We did a story last year, our tech team in Rappler did a story. Propaganda Machines meets its match. Can you guess who will be the right propaganda machine? Anyone in the panel? Or maybe you, Moka Uson. Who will be the right trolls? What are the trolls? Yeah. Cino. Celebrity scandals, the K-POP fans, the Catrine Bernardo, and all the other celebrities, they were able to drown out the, the disinformation machine. Because if, if you're going to look at Twitter, right? There's a trend, yes to ABS, CBN shutdown, but there's a trend, hashtag we block as one, right? So there's, so these people are, you know, legitimate people that are religious fans of K-POP and Catrine Bernardo and all these K-POP stars. So yeah, there's hope. Maybe the hope is literally in our stars. Okay, that's refreshing. How about Dr. Oang, do you have anything to say? I think it raises some questions now. And I think about ideas of like deep platforming. And I often hear it from my U.S. colleagues a lot. They celebrate the deep platforming of Trump and all the influencers in the right-wing media ecosystem that have been complicit in Trump's very problematic speech, also various kinds of right-wing propaganda. And my panelists so far have been kind of like pushing us and really, it's like a really big ask. Now, can we listen more to the other side? And that's such a difficult, morally obliging demand. Are we, are we up to the task? Are we able to listen, hear the stories, the deep stories of people we fundamentally disagree with when someone starts sharing their anti-vaccine conspiracy? Like are we even, do we even have our capacity, but a mental health capacity to make space for that? Or should we preserve our own sanity and also center ourselves? So on one hand, I would just like to recognize how morally obliging and morally demanding this ask is. And I do want to acknowledge that some people are more vulnerable to trolling, to harassment than others. Women, LGBTQ people are much more vulnerable. Of course, certain professions, activists, journalists are victims of targeted harassment. Academics also being identified, here in the US, professors of critical race theory are being targeted by right-wing groups. I worry about what might happen in the Philippine context, but on what if certain kinds of UP professors, for example, might become targets of these harassment campaigns. So just to also kind of like give the individual some agency to make that decision. Should I make space or should I also preserve my own mental health here? All right. Thank you, Dr. Ong. Warren, you want to add anything? I want to come in. I also want to add something. Oh, no, please. I'll go after you. No, I agree with Jonathan that we should give respect to people's right to mental health. I mean, some people are not cut out. Some ordinary people are not cut out to take controls. But should they feel they're up to it? I think there are two things that are important. One is they should correct and mistake and set the record straight when it comes to errors or accusations, false accusations that the trolls make. But number two, and this is, I think, empowering, especially for those who don't want to speak up, is to report the abuse of the platform. I think we should have run included in the poll, in the meta meter, how many of us have actually used the report and abuse or report this post right to a platform? Because we'd like to think that we'd like at least hold platforms to their promise that they would take action on or abusive or undesirable behavior online. All right. Thank you, Professor Ong. I'm sorry, Professor Chua. Warren, yes. Yeah, I agree with the points raised regarding our mental health, especially now in this pandemic. It's very difficult and there's been so much loss to suicide and that sort of thing. It's very disheartening. When I mentioned that you argue passionately about what you believe in, I want to clarify that you don't do that with everybody because you have no way of knowing if a person online is real or not. I only advocate engaging people on the other side or people you don't disagree with if they are in your circle, friends, family. That's where you push the argument and help them to see the light as somebody else put it earlier. Regarding the BTS and those fan groups, there's something there that really helps them fight through the misinformation and that's something that I think we all need and it's passion. Their passion is for their idols, but if you seek them out, there are people online who argue passionately for science, who argue passionately for correct policy, for the correct response to COVID-19, for the correct economic policies and legislative agendas, you can see that they're passionate about it and they will argue about it as well. We need that with everybody. If you look at the BTS fans and those at Catnil fans, the people who spend so much time outside ABSCB and just waiting for their idols, they are very passionate to the point that they know every single thing that they need every single detail of their idols. That's the same kind of passion we need when it comes to our elections and our political leaders. Now, I don't know if you can argue that the others on the other side are passionate about, are as passionate as those people, but you need to look at yourself and be as passionate as what you believe in. Fight for the platforms that you believe in, the changes that you want. All right. Thank you, Warren. So at this point, I think we are running late. It's time to bring in questions from our audience in Zoom, YouTube and Facebook. We have people monitoring the TV, UP, YouTube channel as well as the TV, UP and PCS Facebook pages. So for those who cannot join us in Zoom, please feel free to post your questions in the comment box. Okay. So let's go to our comment box. We have so many questions here. Let me see. Hold on. Okay. The anti-vaxxers are picking up from local and foreign experts that even those knowledgeable in the science have to crunch the numbers themselves, really have their voices heard to be believed. Okay. There's an exclusive group of anti-vaxxers. There's an exclusive group for those promoting vaccination and both groups are fighting with each other. How can you tell? And there's so many videos and from YouTube and all that coming out. How can you actually tell if these videos are not fake and the check sites that they put there are also not just made by those who created the fake news? Any of our panelists? Warren, would you like to say something? Oh, well, I actually wanted to respond to a comment in the chat box. I'll do that first. Reggie Durand mentioned that he disagrees with me. Be passionate for the country and not for politicians. I absolutely agree with that. I say that because if you be passionate with politicians in this country, that's very difficult. There are no party lines and they switch ever so often. You need to be passionate about the change that you want that can help move our country forward. Regarding the question how to discern the truth, we have to go back again to education. And again, if you're sitting here in this webinar, that's great because you're educating yourself. You're making an effort to understand what's going on. And that's really what you need to do. In terms of vaccination, it's really difficult because it's right now, especially vaccination against COVID-19, it's very new. The pandemic is two years old. There's still so much we don't understand about it and the science is changing all the time. So it's very hard to discern what is true and what is false. The scientists themselves are still figuring it out. However, it's also important to understand, at least to have a base understanding of what's going on, that vaccines really do help. We've been using them forever and we stopped using certain vaccines for certain diseases and they came back to the country. There's a reason for that. There's a scientific basis for that. So you have to have a base understanding of what's going on. But again, because of COVID-19 and it's so new, the science is changing all the time. It's a gray area and it's difficult to understand what's going on as we move forward. All right. Thank you, Warren. And we have another question from Romero Lopez. What kind of regulation can our panelists suggest to regulate the PR and advertising agencies, which are the architects and the VPO's, which are amplifiers of this information? Professor Castro? I don't have a clear solution, but I think that the board or any of the existing independent bodies regulating the advertising industry should do more, should be more proactive. I think ethical standards would not be sufficient at this point. There can be more proactive policies, like I think as indicated in the research of Professor Ong, the need to be transparent about the accounts that politicians have during elections. So I think that putting in systems in the electoral system such that those who are commissioned to be part of the campaign should be audited or reported. I think that's one. Thank you. Who else in our panelists would like to respond to that? Yeah, just to add to that. So I think this is where a really whole of society multi-stakeholder approach is really important. One is to have that open conversation with industry leaders themselves. And I think the initiatives that we have done together with Lente, which is an election civil society watchdog group, together with our research team in the last elections was to have that discussion with PR firms. Can we have transparency? Who are the consultants of the politicians? What do politicians pay for? Who are the influencers who are part of teams? Just so we can have names and like a set of accountability. This campaign is running a little dirty. Who's the person behind this? Who's the agency behind this? So here what I noticed in those conversations, which happened behind closed doors, is that it's often the younger people who are often more willing to experiment with transparency initiatives. Older people are like too invested in the current system and they're afraid of what might happen to their bottom line. If any kind of checks and balances might open up, that might hurt them about where it matters. So here I would also encourage educators, also journalists, find ways to empower those younger people in the industry. One project that I had in mind, hoping for other journalists and media producers to join in is to have a platform for like enabling whistleblowing that would guarantee the anonymity of whistleblowers. Those who had worked for campaigns just to understand how things work. And here we won't go and give detail and popularize who these people are. We're not going to celebrate them as heroes. Here it's about to understand how these campaigns work and again help us demystify this shady operation. So I think from the local level, we're able to do a lot of these things that can spotlight the responsibility of the different folks who are profiting from this information production. Just to follow up question, I read from a columnist that they charge as much as five million a month per project and then the trolls that are hired get 50,000 a month. How can even our young people who have just started to work refuse that because like our minimum wage is so low and here is a big offer. What do you tell them so they have the courage and the strength to be able to refuse that much money? Yeah, that's such a great question. So again here I would also encourage us to be more specific because Troll is such a catch-all. The 50,000 pesos for a troll is that the strategist, the designer, the campaigner. I would assume it's somebody more senior. I think the younger people are still being paid peanuts compared to senior managers and once again Troll is not their official title. They are graphic designers, copywriters, website producers, content producers, digital support workers. But once again, here I think to normalize the conversation influencers and paid ads, I think they should be declaring when influencers do paid ads for corporate brands. I think now there's becoming more of a call-out culture that, hey, this looks a little shady. This team of influencers or micro-influencers are promoting Shopee or Lazada, etc. But they just need to declare that. They should be doing the same for politicians, I think. And we need to normalize those conversations and also have like a broader set of eyes and ears. It's not just on Facebook, it's also happening on TikTok. And you would be surprised it's the young people who are actually more open to discuss this than the older people. Okay, thank you Warren. You wanted to say something? Yeah, absolutely. I agree with Dr. Ong. You have to follow the money and transparency is key. There's a comment in the chat box about our laws being there. They're just not being implemented. I recall when I was still reporting at the stock market every day, it was a requirement for us not to have any stocks or if you do have any shares, you have to disclose it before you say anything about it. That's something that we need in terms of these influencers when they're talking about politicians or where they share things of that nature. It's very important that we implement our rules and regulations, especially on election spending as well. The Philippines is well known for having diverse laws, even laws that are ahead of its time. However, the implementation is something that's always lacking. The capacity of our law enforcement and regulators to actually implement the laws or sometimes even understand what the laws are trying to achieve. That's something that has to be improved. Yes, so yeah, that's my response to that. Warren, wouldn't it be difficult for the legislators to come up with a legislation against this when they themselves are the ones taking advantage of this particular situation? Oh yes, absolutely. I have nothing to say to that and no reaction, but we have to believe that somebody in public office will stand up and do what is right. Otherwise, we'll just all be hopeless. We have to believe somebody can do something about it and the way we can take the power back to elect people who we believe in who will bring that change. All right, thank you, Warren. We only have time for one last question, but maybe we ask our speakers to please answer the questions in our Q&A box as we continue with the program. Our last question is a fast round for all our speakers in the battle of the trolls. Who wins and who loses? Can we ask Professor Chua? I think everyone loses. The more obvious losers are the victims and targets who endure the toll of being trolled. Democracy is also a casualty when disinformation and political trolling drown out voices, shrink civic space and distort electoral outcomes, but the trolls themselves are losers, I think for surrendering their morals. All right, Dr. Purnia. Yes, in the end, it is the country, the state of our democracy, but also the strollers themselves because they contributed to this destruction. All right, Ralph. Well, for me, I think it's time for one tech to be held accountable and to also, as Jonathan said, the PR agencies, they need to learn from what journalism has done for centuries. We have regulated ourselves, we have set standards, very, very, very high standards. And I think we have journalists that are already on the PR fence and maybe the key is with them, bringing what they have learned in journalism to the PR, bringing ethical standards that they have to self-regulate. I mean, I understand there is some sort of self-regulation, but it's not enough. They have to catch up with tech. And it's not, again, I want to emphasize this is not a free speech issue. It's an issue on businesses profiting off lies and fear. Okay, thank you, Ralph. How about Professor Castro? Everyone is a loser, democracy will be scourged. For the trolls, the financial reward is temporary. After using up your income, you will go back to the system of poor traffic system, poor governance. Anyone who pays you to do these things does not have genuine public concern. They just want to stay in power. So, if you are going to leave the air at the end, why are you still supporting? All right, thank you, Warren. Yes, everybody is a loser in this battle. But again, we have to follow the money. And we have to note that because of social media and the current policies they have, it's extremely profitable to be a troll or to organize trolls, especially during elections. So, we have to find a way wherein there is no money in trolling. We have to find a way. We have to figure that out. How do we do that? Provide better opportunities for everybody. It sounds like a simple solution but it's very difficult to achieve. And until we have this situation or this system where we reward people for simply logging on to social media and talking trash about somebody for cash, I think this is going to be a perennial problem. All right, thank you. How about Dr. Ong? Wow, such a huge question. So, for me, what our conversation here underscores is that we cannot depend on capitalism and its structures to sustain democracy. Like, if the corporate logics of profit at all costs, it's not tenable for democratic speech and for community. So, I think, you know, I'm really looking at how can communities find ways, better ways of living with each other. How can we work better with each other? How can we collaborate and produce new things, new ideas, new creative projects together? So, for me, it's understanding. I think the next decade really is about how can we depend on new technologies? How can we create better ethical ways of connecting with each other such that it's not just about blocking people we dismiss or disagree with but developing new value systems? So, for me, moving forward, there will be, yeah, like a real reckoning when it comes to the values and ethics that societies will hold dear. And I do hope that everyone here finds their way to contribute to that project. And I think it's not about us drilling down to doing what we know is best. We need to experiment with new ways of connecting and building things with each other. All right. Thank you very much to all our speakers who have been so generous with their time to share with us their knowledge and insights. We will be asking our speakers to give their parting words to our viewers. But before they do that, may I ask all our viewers in Zoom to please participate in the panel discussion evaluation poll in order to show our speakers our great appreciation. There it is. So, can you please participate in the poll? Okay. The panelists demonstrated thorough knowledge of the topic. Strongly agree. 90%. Right. And the panelists were well prepared and organized. Strongly agree. 88%. Yay. A plus for all our speakers, please. All right. So, there it is. All right. So, everyone's happy with our speakers. So, we will leave the panel discussion evaluation poll running in the background. Okay. We're sharing the results. All right. And now we will listen to the parting words of our speakers. Let's begin with Professor Joven Castro. The Q Research Institute predicted that the future of Web 2.0 is there will be more regulations. Senator Gordon is toying with the idea of banning Facebook in the Philippines. But what is in our social and political system that influences this engagement? Because even if we take down, even if we strictly regulate, but we do not address the democratic issues of inclusive growth, the cycle will be vicious in different creative forms. The COVID-19 pandemic has shown how our leaders can support us. Do you feel you deserve the treatment or governance you've got? You register and vote. Thank you. Thank you, Professor Castro. Ralph Rivas. Oh, sorry. Again, my biases are that I'm a journalist following the money. And I just want to say that the gatekeeping powers are no longer with journalists. It's just with big tech. Silicon Valley has to be scrutinized now more than ever. It should be a multi-sectoral approach when it comes to dealing with the issue on this information. Our job as individuals is to while we're still trying to figure out how to solve this problem, it is up to us on the individual level to educate ourselves, educate our social circles, engage them as politely as we can. I know we have lost lots of friends, but I think it's still important to keep the open discussion. But if it's not an option, I mean, I think we should really just try our best. Dear friend, that's all. Thank you. Thank you, Ralph. Warren Deguzman. Parting words. I wanted to answer a question in the chat box really quick about the big tech affecting the stock exchange. I don't understand completely the question, but if you're referring to social media, that sort of thing, yes, it does influence the stock market. And there are so many investments out there utilizing social media. So be careful, be wary of what you believe online. And that's really what is necessary to get around trolling and misinformation and disinformation. Just to be careful what you believe in, double-check everything. Journalists, we need three sources, credible sources, before we can put the print anything. That's what everybody else should do. Verify, verify, verify. Don't take anything at face value. Thank you, Warren. Professor Ivontua. I think we've seen how disinformation and trolling can really undermine democracy. So let's do our part in pushing back against that. Let's be part of the whole of society approach. And please start by not being a troll. Thank you, Professor Chua. Dr. Elena Purnia. Yeah, I address these last words to the young and those who are not so young, who are here listening to us. Please register to vote. Then make sure you assess the candidates, their capacity for leadership, their nationalism, their true concern for you and your future. Vote intelligently, please. The future is yours. You really have a great stake in it. Thank you, Dr. Purnia. And finally, let's hear from our main presenter, Dr. Jonathan Ong. Well, thanks once again for inviting me such humbling opportunity to hear and connect with you all. I think social media, especially in the COVID-19 moment, again, also exposed to us the various ways in which we can help and uplift, fundraise, listen, provide a helping hand for people who are in need. And I think that's what I think things are unprecedented. We saw, oh, we can actually depend on these tools for connection, for also rebuilding. And also developing new vocabulary, I learned so much from Instagram influencers when it comes to discussions of Black Lives Matter, when it comes to ways of political organizing online, also fundraising in the Philippine setting, right, in our community pantry. So I think we should find new opportunities to create, right, and find ways that we can build something together with people who are also, we're not used to connecting with. So I would love to end with that. Thank you so much, Dr. Ong. We learned a lot from all of our panelists today. Such words of wisdom from our esteemed panel. We hope that this discussion has helped our viewers analyze the importance of these issues to serve as their decision making in the upcoming national elections. We are sharing the panel discussion evaluation. So the panelists demonstrated thorough knowledge of the topic. Strongly agree is 88%. Agree is 11%. Strongly disagree, 1%. The panelists were well-prepared and organized. Strongly agree, 87%. Agree, 12%. The panelists were, oh, the panelists spoke clearly and audibly. Strongly agree, 90%. Agree, 9%. Strongly disagree, 1%. The panelists used appropriate language with technical jargons adequately explained. Strongly agree, 83%. Agree, 16%. Strongly disagree, 1%. The panelists contributed to the perspectives and knowledge on trolls and troll farming. Strongly agree, 91%. Agree, 8%. Strongly disagree, 1%. All right. So we've heard from our viewers. And so thank you for all those who have keyed their answers. We can see that our audience has overwhelmingly given high marks to our panel. As mentioned earlier, we are now launching our post test so you can assess your progress in knowledge and understanding acquired from this webinar. We will be launching our post test opinion poll. Okay, we will keep the post test open in the background as we proceed with our program. It is my distinct pleasure to introduce to you the Chairman and CEO of Creative, oh here, okay. Let's just look at our mini quiz. The big words are still annoying. And this information manipulative. Okay, just to explain, the big words are the ones that have more voters. So the bigger the word, the more people who wrote that word. So paid is big. Evil is not so big. Annoying, manipulative. Disinformation, aggressive. What else? Provocative, illogical. And the others are really small already. So those were the words given by most of our viewers to describe a troll. And then we have the next one, the controls influence the outcome of the national election. 148 said yes and two said no. There you go. So, all right. So now we will keep the post test open in the background as we proceed with our program. It is my distinct pleasure to introduce to you the point person of this webinar, Board Director of the Philippines Communication Society and Associate Professor of the Polytechnic University of the Philippines. To give the synthesis and closing remarks, please welcome Professor Edna T. Bernabe. Hello, good morning again to everyone. Good morning. Well, on behalf of the PCS, for almost two hours, two and a half hours, we still have 430 viewers. Now, it's a bit of a long discussion and I could just say that we had the best presenters for this morning. Starting off with our speaker, Dr. Jonathan Ong who said that there is really a process and a hierarchy in this troll or trolling. And Professor Ibonchula mentioned that fact checking is very important. And of course, the best way to avoid this troll or trolling is to fact check. And of course, Mr. Warren of the Guzman mentioned that it's just, you know, trolling is just a mere enterprise. But, you know, we should do something about this. But the economic situation right now is, you know, speaking. That is why people resort to this kind of activity. Well, Mr. Ralph Rivas from Rappler said that change can be done, but it's very difficult. But, you know, even though it's difficult, we have to do something. And definitely Professor Joven Castro said that trolling has now become more professionalized. And, you know, the people are now being deceived by trolling. And, you know, winning is a thing that is really bad because winning now as he said, winning is a term, it's already a term which now is being defined as destroying a reputation of people, of politicians, and other members of the society. So he mentioned that, you know, schools have a very big role in this situation, and that schools should legitimize the practice of democracy. And he said, I didn't just know, I should know and I should know. Definitely summarizing all the words of our speakers, our discussions, we can say that this battle is really a very difficult one, a battle that is difficult to be won. But definitely we'd have to do something about it. And that is why here in PCS, we have already started it. And we're going to continue with it. This is just the first of the webinar series. We have this coming September, October, November, December. And at this point, I would like to in behalf of the PCS, I would like to thank these following people and following organizations, starting off with the UP, ITCO, or the UP Information and Technology Development Center, the UPTV, the production and staff of UPTV, they've been so very helpful to us. And of course, Ms. Veronica Baluia-Thimenez, thank you very much for being here with us and being our moderator for this morning. And of course, the PCS officers and board of directors, it's headed by our president, Dr. Elena Pernia, and all the other members, Professor Rika, Professor Christine, Professor Liz, Professor Thinverai, Professor Neff, Professor Arteen, Mom G. G. Alfonso, who directed this webinar. And of course, Sir Dante Velasco is not here with us right now. I'm sure he'll be here soon, Sir Dante. And thank you very much to all of you. We'll see you again on the next webinar in September 8. And I hope that you're still here with us and would like to invite others, because this is the most important thing that we're preparing for today. Don't be deceived by the trolls. And let's win this battle. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Professor Bernabe. Right now, we're going to share the post-test results for our viewers. We'll once again share the post-test results. Do we have it, the test results? All right, the biggest word is paid. Fake, followed by fake. Then misleading. Annoying is still there. Aggressive. Misinformation. Close-minded. Disruptive. There are smaller words. Those are the words to describe a troll from our viewers. So paid. Paid. Paid and fake. They're the biggest. So we had the most number of viewers voting for those two words. Okay, and we'll go to the next question. Controls influence the outcome of the national elections. 160. A total of 160 voted yes and two voted no. All right, those are the results of our poll test. We can see a distinct increase in knowledge and understanding of the issues. Those who have actively participated will get the most out of this interactive program. As mentioned, this is just the first of a series of national forum on communication and democracy, Philippine elections 2022. PCS will be having a webinar every second Wednesday of the month until May 2022. So please mark your calendars. Next month, we will be featuring Bata Bata Mulat Kanaba, the youth vote in 2022 with Jules Yang as your host and moderator. Please stay tuned for updates in the PCS website or Facebook page. There you go. Don't miss that. If you enjoyed this webinar, I'm sure you will enjoy this next one, but they have like a whole series, a long lineup of webinars until May, the upcoming elections. So you'll be learning a lot from this. Make sure you mark your calendars. Okay, so this formally closes the first national forum on communication and democracy, Philippine elections 2022. We look forward to your company again every second Wednesday of the month, 9 to 11 a.m. Manila time. If you have not done so yet, please register to vote. I'm Veronica Balutimenez. Let us strengthen our country's democratic foundations through communication. Thank you for joining us. Enjoy the rest of your weekend.