Philippine leader Bongbong Marcos’ digital disinformation regime
Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr., the son of the Philippines’ late and not-so-great former dictator, has been president for just over a year. Last month, Marcos announced a national campaign against disinformation and made some smooth-sounding statements about the importance of media literacy. Taken out of context, this could sound reassuring. But it is pretty rich coming from someone who has dedicated extensive resources to using social media platforms like Facebook and political consultancies like Cambridge Analytica, according to a whistleblower, to help rebrand the image of his family and in particular of his father.
Ferdinand Marcos Sr. is notorious for his flagrant abuses of human rights, most of which occurred when he put the Philippines under martial law for nearly a decade, beginning in 1972. Since 2019, our friends at Rappler have documented how propaganda spread by Bongbong Marcos supporters and campaign workers across Facebook, Twitter and YouTube helped pave the path to electoral victory in 2022.
But Marcos hasn’t just flooded the zone with disinformation about his record and historical revisionism about his family. He has also continued to pursue threats against websites belonging to small media and civil society organizations. In one case, originally brought by his predecessor Rodrigo Duterte’s administration, officials ordered the National Telecommunications Commission to block independent media sites such as Bulatlat and Pinoy Weekly, alongside a smattering of civil society groups’ websites. The order cited the country’s Anti-Terrorism Act, insinuating that the sites were somehow undermining national security.
My old colleague Mong Palatino, an editor at Global Voices who has worked with Bulatlat, got me up to speed on how affected websites have been responding. The case has them working overtime on their defense, but they are undeterred, he said.