Comelec forms 'keyboard warriors' vs disinformation

It's tit for tat against purveyors of fake news for the Commission on Elections (Comelec), which has organized its own "keyboard warriors" — of truth tellers.

- By MAYEN JAYMALIN

At the Kapihan sa Manila Bay Forum yesterday, Comelec Chairman George Garcia said 30 of the poll body's personnel have been assigned to man an information monitoring center in Quezon City established in partnership with the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT).

"We check posts, comments, information especially in social media. More or less we have 30 people there to provide the public with the right information" on elections issues, Garcia said.

"If they have keyboard warriors, we also have our own who would tell only the truth," he said. "You see if we remain silent to (false) allegations and comments in social media, our elections will suffer."

Garcia noted that the Comelec has been requesting different social media platforms to take down misinformation and disinformation.

However, he said, it takes time to remove fake news from cyberspace.

He stressed that the poll body has to deal not only with vote buying and illegal campaigning but with massive misinformation and disinformation that threaten to tarnish the integrity of Monday's elections.

With the elections only four days away, Garcia said he sees disinformation and misinformation proliferating even more.

The DICT admitted that Meta is not acting fast enough to take down spurious accounts and fake news. Meta is the parent company of Facebook and Instagram.

"We've seen progress and now, we're working together to strengthen what's already in place, with an emphasis on faster, more responsive action," Renato Paraiso, DICT assistant secretary for legal affairs and concurrent officer-in-charge of the Cybercrime Investigation and Coordinating Center, said.