The emergence of vitriolic political online trolling in the Philippines is certainly alarming. What used to be a modest industry has now become a profitable business that sees the rise of troll farms everywhere, promoting interest groups and political personalities.
For those who are not aware, troll farms are established organizations that employ people to make online posts that are deliberately offensive or cause angry discussion, in order to cause conflict or change public opinion. They disseminate false information and misleading narratives to sway public perception, shape political preference and even cause mass actions.
In our country, we cannot seem to address this issue because the government usually pursues a crackdown on suspected “trolls” not necessarily to cleanse the system but for purposes of political gains. The on-going investigation on the activities of certain social media personalities identified with the former President is a prime example.
The idea behind the aggressive campaign against them, which predictably would most likely result in prosecution of some of those individuals, is simply to deny political competition. For sure, this is something not peculiar to the current administration. That has always been the case given a political landscape that is characterized by patronage democracy and personality-based governance.
To be honest, I do not see, at least in the immediate future, an honest-to-goodness approach to responding to online trolling, the reason being interest groups, including the powers that be rely heavily on cyber trolling to advance their agenda. What we will see though, as evidenced by what the previous administrations did, is the implementation of coordinated hostile clampdown that merely seeks to persecute and silence political opponents. If this is the case, then we can never really see meaningful reforms that critically address this disturbing social media phenomenon.
To begin with, we need to be able to distinguish between legitimate individuals who peddle their own narratives on issues and those whose goal is merely to sow discord through use of fake accounts or pseudonyms. The former usually are those either motivated by their loyalty to certain personalities or ideologies or are mere clout chasers who enjoy being in the spotlight, along with the wealth that comes along with monetization of their engagements. The latter, on the other hand, are those who clearly are hired simply to do a character assassination job. It is important to make such a distinction because any attack against legitimate individuals may potentially be an assault against free speech in the guise of protecting the public against proliferation of fake news or what have you.
At any rate, I should clarify that troll farmers can be individuals, political parties or even governments. Through fake profiles and accounts that appear to belong to real people, they mobilize people to amplify bogus support for political ideas or create confusion and distrust of democratic institutions.
If the government is really serious in addressing this issue, then it should encourage Congress to come up with meaningful measures that would regulate fake news and political online trolling. This can be done by earnestly sitting down and enacting appropriate laws, along with other programs that seek to educate the public.
What Congress is doing right now is no longer in aid of legislation. Just like in the past, it has allowed itself as a tool of political persecution more than anything else. In a functioning democracy, it is important for Congress to maintain its independence in keeping with the doctrine of separation of powers. But there is too much money and opportunities on the table that are hard to resist. The same motivation which interestingly also explains why there are tons of fake news purveyors out there.