[Be The Good] How to talk to someone who believes in disinformation about Duterte’s arrest

People unfriending each other, online vitriol more toxic than ever, lies fueling divisions, politics again a banned topic at dinners and conversations. 

Yes, Rodrigo Duterte has brought us once again to heightened levels of toxic sludge and enshittification. The Nerve found that almost half, 43%, of public Facebook posts mentioning Duterte on the day of his arrest, and the day after, were in support of him. There were signs of inauthentic and coordinated behavior like using entertainment pages with tens of thousands of followers, and boosting of posts (when social media platforms are paid to spread a post beyond its organic reach). The boosted posts from March 11 to 13 got 40,000 views.

Amid all this, fact-checking organizations like newsrooms, legal experts, and academia have produced, and continue to produce, fact-checking pieces, news articles, legal explainers and even public fora, to fight the deluge of lies.

Rappler fact-checked the lie that the former president’s arrest was a cover-up for the supposed detention of First Lady Liza Araneta Marcos in the US (a post shared 46,000 times, from a Facebook group called “Protect Vice President Sara Duterte”).

Here’s also a fact-check of a fictitious petition with 16 million signatures calling on President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. to resign (shared 14,000 times).

Manipulated videos are all the rage — like this one about a pro-Duterte rally supposedly taking over a street in the Netherlands (it was actually an anti-Russia rally in Serbia), and a fake demonstration in Hong Kong of Filipinos calling for Vice President Sara Duterte’s impeachment (in reality, they were welcoming her).

Too many people are believing and resharing fake quote cards — quotes falsely attributed to US President Donald Trump, comedian and actor Vice Ganda, and even fictional characters like Annalise Keating from the TV show, “How to Get Away With Murder.”

Read all our fact-checks here.

But we all know that producing these fact-checks is easier than doing something that is just as, or even more critical: convincing people to believe them.

We all have that friend, colleague, or loved one who has fallen into a hole of disinformation and false narratives.

It is probably better for your peace of mind to click “unfriend” or just ignore them. But if you are in a place to engage with them and help them be more critical about information they consume, it would greatly benefit your, our, community. As I wrote in my blog, dividing us is part of the Duterte playbook.

I’ve been reading up on some ways to talk about the recent wave of disinformation. From my years talking to both pro- and anti-Duterte groups, I’ve also learned a thing or two about how to have constructive conversations towards facts and a shared reality.

Here are some tips I’ve gathered:

1. Don’t ridicule or humiliate. “Cancel” culture is not going to work if your goal is to convince someone. It is already hard enough for people to admit they are wrong. Humiliating them for it will only alienate you from them, and worse, could make them double-down on their erroneous belief.
2. It may be better to start with a question, rather than statements of fact. Sometimes, just sending fact checks to someone who deeply believes a false narrative won’t be enough. This is because they may have invested a lot of emotion and even their sense of identity to that narrative, such that they can always come up with an alternative “fact” to counter the fact check you send. It may be more effective to ask them a question that could start a conversation about some logical gaps, inconsistencies, or contradictions in the narrative they cling to. Let them ruminate on it. Don’t escalate if they suddenly react violently. But asking more questions, in a calm and genuinely curious manner, can hopefully lead the conversation to where you can start showing reasons for those gaps and inconsistencies — where fact-checking and contextualizing pieces come in. Read our Duterte arrest FAQs here.
3. Talk about the things you agree on, too. For me, this is the most important tip. It may seem non-instinctive to agree with someone who believes in a lie, but it is powerful. Because, believe it or not, there are things we all agree on. We all want what’s best for the country. We all want justice to prevail. We all want good leaders to govern us. We just differ on how we think we can achieve those things. As historian Xiao Chua says in this piece, he would acknowledge valid points made by the other side because it would lead them to see him as a “sensible enough guy.” Chua has been using his background as a historian to tell people about the Marcos dictatorship, amid the barrage of disinformation romanticizing and glorifying it. You want to get to a point where the person you are trying to convince is receptive to what you’re going to say. Finding common ground is one way to do that.

Apart from my personal experience convincing someone to distrust a false narrative, I also used these resources: this explanation of how disinformation tactics work, according to a social psychologist; and psychological factors for belief in disinformation. 

How about you? Care to share ways on how to talk to someone who believes in, and shares disinformation? Let us know!

What’s brewing

After our fact-checkers and journalists pointed out the rise in reported scams, Rappler’s civic engagement arm MovePH and members of the FactsFirstPH coalition are holding a public forum on fighting scams. The forum will take place on March 28, Friday, in UP Los Baños. We’ve partnered with DILG Laguna and DICT’s Cybercrime Investigation and Coordinating Center to help communities and barangay officials protect themselves against different types of fraud and manipulation, online and offline. This event is free and open to the public! Register here to attend.

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