Thread by @rapplerdotcom

How exactly does disinformation affect communities? How can the public take part in these initiatives?

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Cristina Palabay, Karapatan secretary-general cites the rampant disinformation during the war on drugs under the Duterte admin and Bongbong Marcos' run as vice president during the 2016 polls.

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Palabay: After Duterte says HR advocates should be beheaded, I received a message that my head should be beheaded. There was a chilling effect.

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Palabay: Disinformation isn't just in the cyberspace. It has incited violence and there are real people getting hurt.

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Rappler researcher-writer Michelle Abad shares her experience dealing with disinformation.

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Abad cites dealing with disinformation about Rappler: What do we do if we're the ones involved in the disinformation where we're supposed to combat disinformation about other things?

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Melanie Joy Feranil, CEGP national secretariat, shares the experience of the student press with disinformation: What we deal with the most is the redtagging.

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Feranil: Parang nagkakaroon ng deja vu sa suppression of the press during the Marcos dictatorship.

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Feranil cites suppression of student press through pressures, defunding from school admins.

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Feranil: Dahil sa repression na 'yun, nagkakaroon ng rise ng extremist views sa mga estudyante.

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Palabay on how we should deal with disinformation: Sa una pinapatol. But we learned our way around with them. We fight disinformation with facts.

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Palabay: We give face to the stories, to the realities we face.

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Palabay: History is something we have to fight for, na paulit-ulit nating nire-relive.

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Abad quotes Maria Ressa: "If you say a lie again and again, it becomes like the truth."

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Abad: Apart from going for viral false content, maganda din na pangunahan na natin. Sabihin na natin kaagad ang totoo bago kumalat ang hindi totoo.

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Feranil: We set unifying tone in our news releases, organize educational discussions.

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On how to make calls for fighting disinformation more relatable, Palabay says to start at home: Make connections between right to life and right to dignified life. 'Di dapat lang na buhay ka, dapat nae-enjoy mo din ang rights mo.

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Palabay: Let's establish our commonalities. Mas marami tayong commonalities than our differences.

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On how to make fact-checking a culture, Abad: 'Di dapat tignan as two different things ang disinformation and real-life issues.

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Abad: Some people who lived during martial law say na okay lang sila during that time, pero paano naman yung mga naging biktima? We can't discount those realities.

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Abad: Lagyan natin ng mukha ang kwento. Everyone has their different truths and we should listen to them.

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Feranil on how to make fighting disinformation more relatable for the youth: We have shared struggles. We can connect these struggles to the issues in society.

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Palabay on what keeps them strong amid the challenge of disinformation: When we go outside the cyberspace, nakikita talaga natin ang tunay na nangyayari. That's what has always driven me.

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Abad: What keeps us strong is the support from the people, especially during the Nobel win, and from our fellow members in the media.

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Feranil: Nagpapatuloy tayo out of morals, out of necessity.

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Bernice Soriano of Foundation for Media Alternatives shares the work they do to fight disinformation: We focus on the tech side. We also focus on programs for freedom of expression and democracy.

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Shalini Joshi of Meedan Asia-Pacific on their work to fight disinformation: We work closely with fact-checkers, built a software to address disinformation at scale.

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Holy Angel University instructor Leslie Manalo: We are honing and teaching the future media practitioners. The industry then and now are different. Gusto naming ipakita sa kanila anong papasukan nila.

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Owenh Toledo, graduate of Rappler's Fact-Checking Mentorship Program, shares his experience as a mentee.

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Soriano on the barriers to the fight against disinformation: Creating content to combat disinfo is not that easy. It's also harder to simplify it in the right way.

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Soriano: We also have to get the content out there. This is new to us so we're learning along the way.

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Joshi: There's also disinformation spreading offline, which we also need to address.

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Joshi: Another barrier is the format of fact-checks. Disinformation can sometimes be very creative, that's why it appeals to many people.

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Manalo: Majority of who fall victim to disinformation are those who lack access to information. There's more we need to do to reach the grassroots.

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Toledo: One other barrier is language, especially sa provinces. We mostly wrote our fact-checks in English, but we now translate in other languages.

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Soriano, if fact-checking is enough to fight disinformation: We also have to reach to our close connections. We also have to understand them and learn how to discuss fact-checks with them.

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Joshi: We also have to improve our quality of journalism, expand access to other news sources, and amp up our media literacy.

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Manalo: We have to couple fact-checking with multichannel outreach. Sometimes we believe everyone is on Facebook, but we have to understand that we have countrymen with no access to the internet.

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Toledo: Kung may nakikita tayong mga kapamilya o kaibigan nating nagpapalaganap ng disinformation, let's be patient. Hindi naman natin mababago ang mindset nila agad-agad.

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