Just three lines on the DAILY TRIBUNE social media page can bring on a deluge of hostility, hate, sarcasm and, most of all, false assumptions that can only be intended to brutally raise temperatures.

Yet the paper remains unnerved by all this. As a legitimate media company, we take to heart our role in the national conversation; but this situation, where social media allows netizens and trolls to make direct attacks via insults and that weapon of choice called “mass reporting,” unfounded they may be, gives us reason to reflect.

xThere was a time when disagreements ended with a shrug and the words, “Let’s agree to disagree.” Today, they often end with someone getting unfriended, canceled, or branded persona non grata. Somewhere between the dinner table and the comment section, we seem to have lost the ability to disagree without dividing.

Filipinos consistently rank among the world’s heaviest internet and social media users. According to DataReportal’s 2025 Digital Report, Filipinos spend an average of “more than eight hours a day online,” including nearly “four hours on social media.” This is well above the global average.

What it means is that much of our national conversation now takes place on platforms designed to maximize engagement, often by surfacing emotionally charged content.

How tempting it sometimes is to clap back at insults based on ignorance. But why bother? What can we do as ordinary mortals glued to the screen? Be aware. Beware. Know that the more time we spend in digital spaces, the more our moods, opinions, and even relationships are shaped by algorithms rather than face-to-face conversations.

It is encouraging to hear reports that more consumers of news today are of the younger generation. Yet unlike the physical newspaper where the printed content was what one got for the day, nowadays “social media and video platforms continue to be major gateways to news for many,” according to The Reuters Institute’s Digital News Report 2025. In other words, many people encounter headlines, clips, and commentary without reading the full articles or seeing the broader context.

When only the words of “informative” headlines become their knowledge and memes become their arguments, nuance is often the first casualty.

Filipinos love to raise their concerns about false or misleading information online. How can one determine which online information is trustworthy when so many “news outlets” share space on social media?

Perhaps the biggest casualty of misinformation isn’t simply truth — it is trust. Once trust is eroded, every conversation begins with suspicion instead of curiosity.

We have become so invested in defending sides that we sometimes forget to defend ideas. We can see this bias in full display every time our senators attempt to discuss an issue on the floor. They cannot help but bring their personal bias or emotional color to an argument, sometimes with tears involved.

Media outlets pick up all these. Articles become written, articles get clipped for art cards, and in the business of increasing readers and followers, the captions get increasingly provoking.

Old journalists raise a cry against certain tweaks or re-angles. It makes them wonder if they still matter in a space where engagements take precedence over the boring facts.

Journalism is not meant to tell readers what to think. It is meant to give them enough verified information to think for themselves. A newsroom should illuminate, not inflame; explain, not exploit; invite conversation, not deepen division.

We should, then, go back to agreeing to disagree, though this demands courage and a sense of fairness. All’s fair and all that. Democracies become stronger not because everyone agrees, but because people can disagree without questioning one another’s humanity. We need fewer echo chambers and more listening posts. We need fewer labels and more questions. The right questions.

Most of all, we need to remember that before we are supporters of any cause or candidate, we are fellow Filipinos sharing the same future.