ACCORDING to the 2021 Digital News Report, a yearly global study on news consumption conducted by the Reuters Institute, 89 percent or nine in 10 Filipinos have been exposed to disinformation. This extremely high figure is worrisome. The global average stands at 73 percent; at 89 percent, the Philippines ranks second in self-reported exposure to disinformation after Peru.
According to the report, many Filipinos claimed to have been exposed to false or misleading information about COVID-19, politics, and celebrities. But what makes the Philippines distinct in this report is the unusually big proportion of respondents who said that they have been exposed to disinformation about celebrities. The average for the Philippines is 48 percent, which is more than one and a half times the global average of 29 percent.
When it comes to spreading misinformation, the study found that the highest level of concern is about the behavior of politicians, followed by ordinary citizens. It also showed that Facebook is the main channel of disinformation among Filipino respondents.
It is no brainer that Facebook would emerge as the top answer because according to We Are Social, nearly 97 percent of Filipinos aged 16 to 64 use Facebook. This is followed by news websites and messaging apps such as Facebook Messenger. Then, below 10 percent of the Filipino respondents mentioned YouTube search engines like Google and Twitter.
Similarly, a survey conducted among more than 19,000 Filipino respondents in May last year revealed that about seven percent of Filipinos never verify the news or information they consume. Only a third of the respondents have developed the habit of always verifying news or information.
Fact-checking is key to fighting the proliferation of false news or disinformation especially in this digital age and period of pandemic. Fact-checks certainly weaken the basis on which disinformation is grounded because they are evidence-based. It is by far one of the fastest responses to exposing disinformation.
But what keeps Filipinos from fact-checking? On the whole, according to the survey, Filipino cited the lack of time. But the lack of know-how or “I don’t know how to do it” is also behind the failure or the inability of one in every five Filipinos to do so. This self-confessed gap in knowledge and skills cuts across all age groups and certainly needs to be addressed.
These findings underscored the need to equip Filipinos with verification or fact-checking skills, both inside and outside the classroom. Fact-checks help fill the data voids that arise when available relevant data online is still limited, non-existent, or deeply problematic.
