Social Media Filipinos and Key National Issues in the Philippines

This apparent democratizing effect of social media then raises the question of whether a strong presence in social media equates to electoral success?

First-time candidate Willie Ong is a good case study. At the time of the election, he had around 10 million followers on Facebook. As per the final and official tally of election returns, “Doc Willie”, as he was known by his social media followers, garnered only about 7.6 million votes. This was not enough to get one of the 12 seats up for grabs. The candidate who got the 12th seat tallied 14.5 million votes while the one who took the top spot received 25.2 million votes.

One possible reason why some popular online personalities did not perform well in the election was that Filipino voters pretty much stuck to their echo chambers in cyberspace. There was no effort from the various political sides to “reach across the aisle” so to speak. Each side was only keen to promote their respective narratives while equally determined to suppress the claims of the others.

Toxic environment in social media

The problem with an “isolationist mindset” is how easily it can evolve into an “us versus them” mentality. Factor in the anonymity the internet affords, it is not surprising that interaction in social media can become really vitriolic quickly. In fact, another finding of the CNN Philippines research project was how “toxic” online discourse amongst the various political groups in social media was during the entire election period.

Negative campaigning is part and parcel of any electoral exercise. Pointing out the faults and flaws of opposing candidates is not unusual and in fact, helps voters in evaluating whom to vote for. According to veteran journalist and news anchor, Christian Esguerra, who covered the midterm election closely, “social media seemed to be a top weapon of choice for campaign disinformation, complementing old-school negative propaganda on the ground”. Begging the question of whether more stringent measures regulating online political advocacies should be adopted? A move that ironically could be viewed as undemocratic being a curtailment of free speech.

Indeed, social media in the democratic context poses a huge dilemma for many democracies around the world. Negative campaigning, fake news, and other modes of disinformation on the web are preventing people from having an honest-to-goodness deliberation of urgent issues that impact everyone. This absence of open public discussion then enables purveyors of these types of unscrupulous tactics to put more garbage on the internet. Poisoning the well even further to the severe detriment of frequent social media users like Filipinos.