Cherry Mae D.

Andoyo 11-sardonyx

War Propaganda is that branch of public relations devoted to manipulating people’s attitude toward a
war or war in general, rather than engaging in open dialogue. It includes both pro-war propaganda, by
governments and war industrialists, and anti-war propaganda by pacifists or enemy sympathizers.
Propaganda are ideas that are often false or exaggerated and that are spread. It is biased or misleading
information used to promote a political cause or point of view. In this period of time, propaganda are
everywhere. It is now in digital form specifically in social media.

According to the article “Propaganda War: Weaponizing the Internet” by Maria A. Ressa, different
propaganda are quickly picked up and shared by Facebook political advocacy pages and other websites.
One of these is the sharing of a Rappler story entitled “Man with bomb nabbed at Davao Checkpoint”. It
was said that the man was the reason behind the Davao bombing last September 2016 where in fact, the
said Rappler story was actually posted by the month of March on the same year. The propaganda led
readers to think the man with the bomb was captured that day, September 3, when President Duterte
declared a state of lawlessness in the aftermath of the bombing. Readers were duped into sharing a lie
because the context changed the old headline.

Another example given in the article was a photo posted by Peter Tiu Lavina, Duterte’s campaign
spokesman, who attacked critics of the government’s “war on drugs” with his statement about a 9-year-
old girl who was raped and murdered. The photo was actually taken in Brazil and not in the Philippines.
These are only some of the many disinformation campaigns we’ve seen since the election period: social
media campaigns meant to shape public opinion, tear down reputations, and cripple traditional media
institutions. These are also examples of how propaganda affect the people within the social world and
technological world.

There are lots of negative effects brought by Propaganda and the article “Propaganda War: Weaponizing
the Internet” by Maria A. Ressa is just one of the proofs that support this. We are living in the digital
world. We use social networking sites that is why we should be aware of these things. We are the so
called “netizens”. We should understand what’s happening first, and together let’s separate facts from
fictions.