“Lies peddled by Internet trolls, of course, have a certain shelf life.”
In Scandinavian folklore, a troll is one of a class of supernatural creatures that dwell in caves or mountains and are depicted either as dwarfs or as giants. Since the late 1980s, the term has been adopted by Internet users to refer to those who intentionally antagonize others online by posting inflammatory, irrelevant, or offensive comments or other disruptive content.
Internet trolls have apparently been mobilized in big numbers—and recruited presumably at high cost—to manipulate public perception during the campaign for the May general elections.
We see this in the ongoing attempt on cyberspace to revise and distort history, especially the dark epoch known as the years of martial law, and paint it as the years of glory and an era of freedom and plenty.
Such revisionism unfortunately has caught the fancy of pandemic-weary Filipinos, some of whom have started to believe in the lies and are now championing the Dark Side.
In the last six years, troll operators have been bombarding the Internet with millions of fake news about the golden age that was martial law and the almost God-like benevolence of the family that was in power during those days of disquiet.
But like any fool-proof plan, troll-driven propaganda cannot continue forever. Troll fatigue will soon develop, if it’s not already being felt.
Even Nazi spin master Joseph Goebbels could not keep up with the propaganda war after years of basking on success as he repeated lie after lie, hoping it will morph as the truth. But his propaganda machine conked out as early as two or three years before the end of World War II in 1945.
No Nazi lie could hide the inevitability of Germany’s collapse after sustaining back-to-back defeats toward the last quarter of the war.
This dark period in world history should serve as a warning for those running a campaign of lies, particularly during this election season.
Lies peddled by Internet trolls, of course, have a certain shelf life. They are only as good as to the willingness or blind subservience of the target audience — until they themselves lose interest and start to resist.
Counterfeit truths can achieve a degree of credibility for a while but like their proponents are limited by an expiry date. Internet propaganda is akin to our favorite canned goods that carry the “best before” label.
Truth defenders on the internet are now very aggressive in quickly exposing paid trolls trying to manipulate or poison a discussion, especially on election-related issues.
The social media troll productions that are running like a Netflix series are now about to have a “grand finale.” Season 2 will most likely be cancelled.
It is now apparent that more people are waking up from the spell that was cast by the troll army.
A quick scan of social media platforms shows that trolls are being outmaneuvered by legitimate netizens who are outraged and fed up with the toxic lies being propagated as truths online.
As vigilantism rises on the Internet to counter the purveyors of lies, the troll war is being won. Academics, the media, people’s organizations, religious groups, and even the martial law victims, are coming forward to counter the falsehoods.
An internet movement is taking back cyberspace from the troll invaders to restore order and ultimately stop the return of the dark forces that ruled the country for more than two decades.
No amount of lies can conceal the inevitability of the beginning of the end of the troll regime.
Our Internet trolls during this election period are not intellectual giants, to be sure, but dwarfs with craniums too puny to grasp the reality that they are taking part in demolishing the very ramparts of democracy in this country.
Unquiet polls
It was the Catholic Church, if we remember right, that launched sometime back a campaign they called HOPE, which stood for honest, orderly, peaceful elections.
For the coming May 9 political exercise, honest, orderly and peaceful elections remains a goal devoutly to be wished.
Particularly the last part.
No less than Rodrigo Duterte, the Chief Executive and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, said late last week that he could not assure peaceful polls this May.
“I cannot guarantee you that it will be peaceful. There will be one or two or three,” Duterte said, apparently referring to places where intense political rivalry could escalate into bloodshed.
He warned that he will go to areas where violence is reported.
“I will go to areas ruled by so-called warlords. Believe me, I’ll go there.”
He cited the case of Mindanao, such as Cotabato province, where there are warring factions. “I told them: I will not allow terrorism in the election. I will not allow violence.”
But will his promised physical presence in violence-prone areas deter power-hungry politicians from imposing their will on their opponents and voters through violence?
Or is this gung-ho attitude merely a repeat of his campaign promise in 2016 to ride a jetski to the nearest islet in the South China Sea we claim as part of our Exclusive Economic Zone and plant the Philippine flag there, a promise that he later admitted to be nothing more than a PR stunt that only the hopelessly naive and stupid would believe?
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