Tag: social media

Rappler turns Facebook into a mainstream news outlet by becoming its “fact checker”

April 13, 2018 benign0 44 Comments

Nowadays, very few people will argue against the reality that mainstream news media organisations are suffering a double-edged crisis of relevance and public trust. Newspapers, conventional broadcast news, and, now, even the websites of news organisations are no longer the go-to media outlets of the average information consumer. And with the utter domination of users’…

Media

A post-Facebook world

April 13, 2018 benign0 3 Comments

Like Bill Gates back in the turn of the century, the world’s biggest man of the hour, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, is having his day on the grill. And like Gates back then, how he spends his time under the microscopes of monopoly busters, privacy advocates, and even conspiracy theorists will be a test of…

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Society, Tech Talk

Big Sisters are Watching: Rappler and Vera Files set to become Facebook’s INFORMATION POLICE!

April 12, 2018 benign0 11 Comments

A “report” published on Rappler today announced that the world’s largest social media corporation, Facebook, has enlisted the services of Rappler and Vera Files to provide “fact checking” services in the Philippines. According to the “fact checking process” to be followed under this arrangement, Rappler and Vera Files will be reviewing “flagged” stories and will,…

Media, Tech Talk

Filipinos need to be taught how to think and not to simply believe

March 28, 2018 benign0 19 Comments

Filipinos need to learn how to think. It is imperative that they do because many things about the 21st Century demand an uplift in thinking. We can see how important this is in the recent events that have plunged Western-style democracy into crisis. It had become evident that men working with machines could turn human…

Media, Politics, Society

Facebook hears the secrets that you keep when you’re talking in your sleep

March 21, 2018 benign0 13 Comments

Facebook is currently in a world of trouble after news about how a chunk of data harvested off it was used by an analytics firm, Cambridge Analytica, to generate insights allegedly used to help current United States President Donald Trump win the elections in 2016. While many observers wonder whether this attention is due to…

Politics, Society, Tech Talk

How Filipino liberal women have WEAPONISED the Feminist Movement against Duterte

March 14, 2018 benign0 4 Comments

Step back from the political chatter of social media for a moment and ask yourself: Are the “issues” being backed by the loudest, shrillest voices at the moment the most important ones? To answer that question we need first to define the term “important” in this context. What is important to the average Filipino? The…

Politics, Society

Only an intellectual revolution will reduce the spread of disinformation in the Philippines #FightDisinfo

February 13, 2018 benign0 8 Comments

One thing that can be noted from the various camps in the Philippines’ sad “political debate” is that the starting point of assertions is always one’s political or personal loyalties. As such, the goal of most participants in this “debate” is to re-enforce beliefs rather than engage in an intellectually-honest search for the truth. Facebook…

Culture, Media

Leni Robredo’s claim to the Philippine vice presidency remains questionable to this day

February 12, 2018 benign0 29 Comments

The battle to extract the truth about electoral fraud that marred the 2016 Philippine Presidential Elections drags on because presumptive “vice president” Leni Robredo continues to hinder progress in the investigation. Without going into the details of the case (all of which is publicly-available, save for the facts of those who argue that no fraud…

Crime, Culture, Media