A comment on social media asks: who would win? A social media “giant”? Or a bunch of Filipinos tapping away on Facebook? In this case, the former pertains to none other than Rappler CEO Maria Ressa. On the other side, you’ve got a great many Filipino Facebook (FB) users who also happen to be supporters of current Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte.
Facing a local audience that has increasingly chosen to disengage from Rappler, Ressa and her outfit have taken to international media in order to “warn” the world about Duterte and his “dictatorial” and “anti-democratic” administration. The latest network to feature her was MSNBC, whose correspondent Ari Melber published a report about Facebook being under fire for allowing “fake news” to spread, and how President Duterte deployed the “Putin playbook” – which, if I understand correctly, refers to using an army of social media “bots” and “influencers” to game what people see in their Facebook feeds.
Ressa, for her part, called on Facebook to “moderate its greed”, to “clean up its toxic waste”, and “to be accountable for its role as the new gatekeeper of information”. The funny thing about all this is that Ressa’s pet project, Rappler, is supposed to be a social news network, whatever that means. Rappler is supposed to be social media savvy, yet the results say otherwise; why are they facing down disengagement and buckling under competition from numerous independent, individual unallied bloggers? Before President Duterte came into the picture, many of us on social media remember how Ressa and her Rapplerettes were harping on “social media for social good” – that was when they were the dominant voice. And now, suddenly, she is demonizing Facebook – merely a platform, and neither inherently good or evil – for not being “a gatekeeper”. One can’t help but get the feeling that gatekeeping means filtering out information Ressa and her like-minded cohorts don’t agree with.
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At this point, if we go back to the question at the start of the article: who would win, between Maria Ressa and the millions of pro-Duterte supporters on Facebook, we are led to a bigger question:
Which side would have more weight from Facebook’s perspective?
It is worth remembering that Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s head, is a businessman first and foremost. So if we look at things from a business perspective, we get to ask: what can Maria Ressa offer that is more valuable than what the millions of Filipino FB users provide – revenue? What can Ressa use to appeal to Facebook that is stronger than what the pro-Duterte FB users generate for it?
Interestingly enough, however, Facebook has been featured in another report, but the topic this time is that it is deleting accounts at the direction of US and Israeli governments:
As is always true of censorship, there is one, and only one, principle driving all of this: power. Facebook will submit to and obey the censorship demands of governments and officials who actually wield power over it, while ignoring those who do not. That’s why declared enemies of the U.S. and Israeli governments are vulnerable to censorship measures by Facebook, whereas U.S and Israeli officials (and their most tyrannical and repressive allies) are not.
Now when we take this into consideration in how Maria Ressa is urging Facebook to “get its act together”, we come to the question at the heart of it all:
Does Maria Ressa wield enough influence and power over Facebook, to get it to do what she wants?
This question, like most of this dustup among pro-Duterte supporters, Ressa, and Facebook, is rather “confronting.” If you’ve already watched the MSNBC report linked in this article, you’ll be tempted to think one way. And yet the impending new year should remind us, that we should always be prepared for the unexpected.
Happy 2018 to all!!
А вы, друзья, как ни садитесь, все в музыканты не годитесь. – But you, my friends, however you sit, not all as musicians fit.
Let’s just say that Ressa from Rappler was “significant” enough for MSNBC to have given her a platform to “complain” about Facebook and Duterte. Expendable as they are, in this case, Ressa’s complaint is a means to a certain end. Same with Facebook and Zuckerberg.
These entities and companies wouldn’t be where they are if they were truly independent.
MSNBC is one of those pro Hilary Clinton media, that is spreading Fake News, against U.S . Pres. Trump. Maria Reesa’s Rappler.com wants “gatekeeper of information” ? What does she mean by that phrase? Censorship ?
If you cannot beat the internet trolls and bloggers. Censor and silence them !
The Aquino Cojuangco propaganda media, enjoyed their media dominance, for the past 30 years. Feeding their lies to Filipino people. Nobody can question them. Since, they own the media.
Now that the Information Technology is here. Any ordinary person, such as you and me, can question what is being fed to us by the propaganda media. They are losing in debates, in blogging, in trolling. They sent paid hackers, to block us. It did not work. They sent paid trolls to debate with us. It did not work. They sent viruses to our computers. It simply did not work.
So, they now demonize, all of us, as like evil people, who inhabit the internet and the social media.
If you cannot Beat them, DEMONIZE them !
Facebook deactivated my account which I used to engage opposition social media personalities. I don’t think my posts we’re particularly caustic. But oh well, Facebook decided to shut it down on the basis that I wasn’t using my “real name”. They even asked to send pictures of me with that name being used. Oh well, I can’t help but feel like Facebook wasn’t on my side, or (dare I say it?) A “victim.”
It is the paid hackers, who did that, on the order of Aquino & cahoots.
Maria A. Ressa major question is “why”. If they lose, they ask “why”. If they win, they ask “why”. Their “whys” weave their wonders.
The best cleaning we ever need to do is the cleaning of TOXIC minds which are far worse than all the toxicities existing far and wide of the whole world. All sorts of toxicity IS the result of a toxic mind as in all sorts of humand activities – Mind IS the root cause of all illnesses (and all wellnesses too). You see, WHATEVER is in the mind, sooner or later will emerge out there. See to it that our minds are well equipped with proper thoughts (seeds) for these will lead to having good, healthy fruits in the future. We are so concerned about the external (results of our poor thingking) rather than the internal (how we think).
This.
If Filipinos could clean out some of the shit inside their heads, it would have an immediate and dramatic impact on their external environment.