JUST recently, the big news of former president Rodrigo Duterte’s ICC arrest and pending trial caused an uproar on social media with a back-and-forth commentary of both Duterte’s supporters and those who oppose him.
While many pro-Duterte make noise on the internet, yelling their support—some took it as an opportunity to make Duterte memes out of it.
These netizens unleashed their creativity to create fake quotes as if said by fictitious characters.
In one post, a banner of Saul Goodman from ‘Breaking Bad‘ and ‘Better Call Saul,’ poking fun at the former president.
Despite its inappropriate statement, the image is still shared to various pro-Duterte pages.
One famous post that got the fans yelling is when Elle Woods from ‘Legally Blonde’ had also jumped into the trend; stating on how the said arrest is a “blatant violation of Philippine sovereignty.”
Annalise Keating from How to Get Away with Murder also had a say on the ICC Duterte trial, citing Elle Wood’s quote on the previous post.
Harvey Specter and Mike Ross also made an appearance within the shared post of Duterte’s supporters, with them supposedly standing as the former president’s defense trial lawyers.
Meanwhile as an honorable mention, adult film star Atty. Johnny Sins had also hopped in the post—announcing how he is willing to provide his service for free.
Unintentional disinformation
While the intent of these posts is for fun and entertainment purposes only, there are some Filipinos who mistakenly believe these posts to be true. As a consequence, these supposed viral Duterte memes also become a source of disinformation.
According to University of the Philippines Diliman Associate Professor at College of Mass Communication Danilo Arao, the spread of fake news is nothing new.
“It’s not new because even before the internet there were efforts to engage in what we call— well, it’s not called fake news yet— but the term black propaganda was being used to put certain people or certain events or certain groups in a negative light.” He said.
Arao stated that the consequences of the continuous spread of misinformation and disinformation will end up suppressing the freedom of expression amongst the masses.
“You might end up compromising and censoring critical commentary because the government would tend to brand as fake news peddlers those who are critical of their policies and programs.” He said.
This is especially dangerous as there are still no laws that prohibit the spread of fake news.
With the alarming spread of misinformation along with its influence to the masses, Arao said that educating oneself about media literacy plays a huge factor in combating fake news.
Aside from media literacy, Arao also added self-regulation in the media. “We have to strengthen our ranks. Make sure that we’re able to have a more systematic manner of fact-checking, for example.”
Lastly, Arao shared that we should pressure social media platforms to exercise what we call responsible gatekeeping.
Fact-checking what you read online is also one of the main rules when it comes to expanding your media literacy and Arao advised news consumers to not just rely on one source.
“For all we know, the source may either be engaging in disinformation, a conscious effort to lie to people or there could be something missing in what they’re reporting.”
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