The government will implement a Digital Media Literacy campaign this year to equip the most vulnerable communities with knowledge and tools “to be discerning of the truth,” a Presidential Communications Office (PCO) official said.
PCO Undersecretary Cherbett Karen Maralit issued the statement during the CyberSafe Against Fake News, a side event to the 67th Session of the United Nations Commission on the Status ofWomen (CSW67) at the UN headquarters in New York.
Maralit noted that Congress has tasked the PCO to address the growing concern over misinformation and disinformation, especially in the digital landscape.
“Backed by the budgetary support from the Philippine Congress and its confidence in the leadership of the PCO, we took the opportunity to develop mechanisms through which we can bring the online experiences of females of all ages into focus,” the PCO undersecretary said.
In her remarks, the PCO official also noted that “crucially, in this age of plenteous and insistent information, the rights of women and girls continue to be undermined by disinformation and misinformation.”
The PCO, she said, will focus on the most vulnerable communities.
“Taking a context-based and factual grassroots approach, we intend to reach out to, and equip, these communities with knowledge and skills and tools that will enable them to discern the truth as they engage in various social media channels and platforms,” Maralit said.
She also said that the two-fold path involves the active collaboration by PCO with the private sector, including the stakeholders of the broadcast industry, to establish effective mechanisms against fake news.
Maralit said a study to be conducted this month throughout the Philippines seeks to refine the target communities where media literacy is most needed; determine the social media platforms through which these communities are most susceptible to fake news; and identify the contents and topics on which this misinformation and disinformation focus.
The study also hopes to identify the profiles of fake news peddlers;understand the influences that open these communities to deceptions and understand the practices and habits of the target communities that create the opportunities for exposure to disinformation and misinformation.
“When we have gathered the results of this study, expectedly by the middle of this year, we will be implementing a nationwide media literacy campaign that will focus on the areas identified,” the PCO official said.
By the end of this year, Maralit said, the PCO will be closing the campaign with a Media Literacy Summit, where speakers from organizations such as Facebook, Google, and the Philippine Commission on Women, among others, will be invited.
Meanwhile, the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) discussed the measures it implemented to empower vulnerable populations to discern true and accurate information from fake news and to report any such abuses.
In her speech, CHR Commissioner Fayda Dumarpa said they have implemented Lila ang Kulay ng Boto Ko Campaign (Purple is the color of my vote), an education drive on women’s right to suffrage.
CHR also created an online reporting portal for gender-based violence “to provide a platform for women and girls to report and seek assistance on different forms of violence either committed offline or in online spaces, including those arising from disinformation and misinformation.”