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This is an extremely biased piece of journalism that almost anyone on the ground in the Philippines would disagree with. Very dishonest and should not be truste

This is an extremely biased piece of journalism that almost anyone on the ground in the Philippines would disagree with. Very dishonest and should not be trusted at face value.

sago 9y ago
For those of us on the other side of the world, Would you be willing to give a quick summary of the biases you see in the piece, a taster of your experience of the reality on the ground?
- johnhenry 9y ago
  Agreed, I would love to hear more perspectives.
- RyanZAG 9y ago
  The article makes it sound like it's fake accounts who are against some in the media, but it's really the entire population. The article calls out fake profile pictures on facebook as some indication of an artificial message. This is wrong - many people on facebook use fake profile pictures. I use a fake profile picture myself, although my account is genuine. Probably a third of your facebook friend list uses fake profile pictures - go check for yourself. The article also says they have collected a database of facebook accounts that post pro-Duterte messages as if this is somehow an indictment. With Duterte having an 80%+ approval rating across 100mil people population, many of whom have Facebook accounts, do you think a database of 2mil posters is somehow unexpected or fake? From my time in the Philippines, everyone on the street supports Duterte because he's given them a sense of safety again. For many in western countries, this kind of feeling is unknown because you've likely never walked the streets expecting to be killed at any moment - you have working police and institutions that keep you safe. For many years, the Philippines did not have this, and they see Duterte as having helped make them safe. This breeds an almost fanatical devotion for obvious reasons, and most Phillipinos on social media will defend him with ferocity. The article tries to associate this as something bad and fake. But it's not, it's real and genuine. You can open up Twitter right now and go to Trump's feed and you will see people who hate him and many who wish violence on him. That doesn't mean those people are fake - and the people supporting Duterte aren't fake either. Here's a quick video on how regular people in the Philippines feel about articles like this one: https://youtu.be/siAjsu0ZmKE?t=429 https://youtu.be/siAjsu0ZmKE?t=429
  - Lazare 9y ago
    The issue with fake accounts is they can help skew popular opinion. It's not a defence to say "yeah, there's fake accounts, but popular opinion agrees with them". All that means is they (might be) working. > The article calls out fake profile pictures on facebook as some indication of an artificial message. It did not; it called out fake profiles. Nowhere in the article did it suggest that a fake profile picture was itself evidence of a fake profile. > The article also says they have collected a database of facebook accounts that post pro-Duterte messages as if this is somehow an indictment. It's a database of (mostly real) accounts that post messages that originate with fake accounts; it's a way of measuring the scale of the problem. If millions of real accounts echo these fake messages, it does't mean that there isn't a problem, it means the problem is really big. > For many in western countries, this kind of feeling is unknown because you've likely never walked the streets expecting to be killed at any moment - you have working police and institutions that keep you safe. The homicide rate in the Philippines isn't that high; it's comparable to where the US was 20 years ago. That's obviously not ideal, but there are countries where when expecting death when you walk down the street is reasonable. Honduras has a murder rate of 90 per 100k people; El Salvador is 70 per 100k people. The Philippines is 9 per 100k. > The article tries to associate this as something bad and fake. But it's not, it's real and genuine. You're talking about a "sense of safety" and "feelings", and then discounting claims of fake stories as if those stories couldn't possibly influence these feelings. Nobody is claiming that Duterte isn't popular; we're discussing why he's popular. Maybe he's popular because of stories spread by fake Facebook accounts that made people feel safer, even though the fundamentals haven't changed? Plus, if you look at the actual numbers, in Duterte's first year in office, according the the Philippine National Police, murders actually increased by 22.75%. > everyone on the street supports Duterte because he's given them a sense of safety again You don't see any issues here?
    - RyanZAG 9y ago
      The article gives zero proof of any kind of fake accounts aside from fake profile pictures, and calls Facebook out for not removing the accounts, even thought Facebook says they have removed the fake ones. So clearly Facebook does not feel that those particular accounts are fake either. Calling someone you don't like a "fake account" (as someone has already hinted about me in this very comment section!), does not suddenly turn it into a fake account. It's a real account until you provide absolute proof - especially when the supposed fake account has the same opinion as 80mil+ people in a country. Sorry. The rest of your argument hinges on the idea that 80mil people are terribly stupid and can't tell fake accounts from real accounts - even though they live in the country - and have fallen for a ruse. While you, in your great wisdom - who has probably never been in the Philippines? - know them all to be fake without any evidence. That's a fairly poor argument in my opinion.
ISL 9y ago
Citation needed. It is an opinionated piece, to be sure, but Bloomberg is generally relatively centrist and well-sourced. Care to elaborate or point us to countervailing sources?
Lazare 9y ago
This is a story about people spreading false, content-free things on social media to discredit political opponents. In that context, your comment raises more questions than it answers. In addition, the piece makes a large number of factual assertions that could be easily verified. Are journalists being targeted for harassment? Are government-linked bloggers advocating for the arrest of journalists? A moment's googling suggests the answer is "yes". And of course Duterte's death squads are well known. Edit: Also, I don't think a glib accusation of bias helps much here. Yes, no doubt there's two (or more) sides to this story, but even if true, that amounts to nothing more than a tu quoque at best, and a "they deserved it" at worst.
hacker-gene 9y ago
Well, yes it can be pointed out as bias like any other news out there but "Very dishonest ..."? As other media organization have reported, in case you're interested: https://newrepublic.com/article/138952/rodrigo-dutertes-army-online-trolls https://newrepublic.com/article/138952/rodrigo-dutertes-army... http://comprop.oii.ox.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/sites/89/2017/07/Troops-Trolls-and-Troublemakers.pdf http://comprop.oii.ox.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/sites/89/2017...

This is an extremely biased piece of journalism that almost anyone on the ground in the Philippines would disagree with. Very dishonest and should not be trusted at face value.

sago 9y ago

For those of us on the other side of the world, Would you be willing to give a quick summary of the biases you see in the piece, a taster of your experience of the reality on the ground?

johnhenry 9y ago
Agreed, I would love to hear more perspectives.
RyanZAG 9y ago
The article makes it sound like it's fake accounts who are against some in the media, but it's really the entire population. The article calls out fake profile pictures on facebook as some indication of an artificial message. This is wrong - many people on facebook use fake profile pictures. I use a fake profile picture myself, although my account is genuine. Probably a third of your facebook friend list uses fake profile pictures - go check for yourself. The article also says they have collected a database of facebook accounts that post pro-Duterte messages as if this is somehow an indictment. With Duterte having an 80%+ approval rating across 100mil people population, many of whom have Facebook accounts, do you think a database of 2mil posters is somehow unexpected or fake? From my time in the Philippines, everyone on the street supports Duterte because he's given them a sense of safety again. For many in western countries, this kind of feeling is unknown because you've likely never walked the streets expecting to be killed at any moment - you have working police and institutions that keep you safe. For many years, the Philippines did not have this, and they see Duterte as having helped make them safe. This breeds an almost fanatical devotion for obvious reasons, and most Phillipinos on social media will defend him with ferocity. The article tries to associate this as something bad and fake. But it's not, it's real and genuine. You can open up Twitter right now and go to Trump's feed and you will see people who hate him and many who wish violence on him. That doesn't mean those people are fake - and the people supporting Duterte aren't fake either. Here's a quick video on how regular people in the Philippines feel about articles like this one: https://youtu.be/siAjsu0ZmKE?t=429 https://youtu.be/siAjsu0ZmKE?t=429
- Lazare 9y ago
  The issue with fake accounts is they can help skew popular opinion. It's not a defence to say "yeah, there's fake accounts, but popular opinion agrees with them". All that means is they (might be) working. > The article calls out fake profile pictures on facebook as some indication of an artificial message. It did not; it called out fake profiles. Nowhere in the article did it suggest that a fake profile picture was itself evidence of a fake profile. > The article also says they have collected a database of facebook accounts that post pro-Duterte messages as if this is somehow an indictment. It's a database of (mostly real) accounts that post messages that originate with fake accounts; it's a way of measuring the scale of the problem. If millions of real accounts echo these fake messages, it does't mean that there isn't a problem, it means the problem is really big. > For many in western countries, this kind of feeling is unknown because you've likely never walked the streets expecting to be killed at any moment - you have working police and institutions that keep you safe. The homicide rate in the Philippines isn't that high; it's comparable to where the US was 20 years ago. That's obviously not ideal, but there are countries where when expecting death when you walk down the street is reasonable. Honduras has a murder rate of 90 per 100k people; El Salvador is 70 per 100k people. The Philippines is 9 per 100k. > The article tries to associate this as something bad and fake. But it's not, it's real and genuine. You're talking about a "sense of safety" and "feelings", and then discounting claims of fake stories as if those stories couldn't possibly influence these feelings. Nobody is claiming that Duterte isn't popular; we're discussing why he's popular. Maybe he's popular because of stories spread by fake Facebook accounts that made people feel safer, even though the fundamentals haven't changed? Plus, if you look at the actual numbers, in Duterte's first year in office, according the the Philippine National Police, murders actually increased by 22.75%. > everyone on the street supports Duterte because he's given them a sense of safety again You don't see any issues here?
  - RyanZAG 9y ago
    The article gives zero proof of any kind of fake accounts aside from fake profile pictures, and calls Facebook out for not removing the accounts, even thought Facebook says they have removed the fake ones. So clearly Facebook does not feel that those particular accounts are fake either. Calling someone you don't like a "fake account" (as someone has already hinted about me in this very comment section!), does not suddenly turn it into a fake account. It's a real account until you provide absolute proof - especially when the supposed fake account has the same opinion as 80mil+ people in a country. Sorry. The rest of your argument hinges on the idea that 80mil people are terribly stupid and can't tell fake accounts from real accounts - even though they live in the country - and have fallen for a ruse. While you, in your great wisdom - who has probably never been in the Philippines? - know them all to be fake without any evidence. That's a fairly poor argument in my opinion.

ISL 9y ago

Citation needed. It is an opinionated piece, to be sure, but Bloomberg is generally relatively centrist and well-sourced. Care to elaborate or point us to countervailing sources?

Lazare 9y ago

This is a story about people spreading false, content-free things on social media to discredit political opponents. In that context, your comment raises more questions than it answers. In addition, the piece makes a large number of factual assertions that could be easily verified. Are journalists being targeted for harassment? Are government-linked bloggers advocating for the arrest of journalists? A moment's googling suggests the answer is "yes". And of course Duterte's death squads are well known. Edit: Also, I don't think a glib accusation of bias helps much here. Yes, no doubt there's two (or more) sides to this story, but even if true, that amounts to nothing more than a tu quoque at best, and a "they deserved it" at worst.

hacker-gene 9y ago

Well, yes it can be pointed out as bias like any other news out there but "Very dishonest ..."? As other media organization have reported, in case you're interested: https://newrepublic.com/article/138952/rodrigo-dutertes-army-online-trolls https://newrepublic.com/article/138952/rodrigo-dutertes-army... http://comprop.oii.ox.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/sites/89/2017/07/Troops-Trolls-and-Troublemakers.pdf http://comprop.oii.ox.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/sites/89/2017...