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Manila Bulletin devider Philippines devider National devider Trolling, red-tagging on socmed worsen after polls — FLAG lawyer

Trolling, red-tagging on socmed worsen after polls — FLAG lawyer

Published May 30, 2022 12:19 pm

Former Supreme Court spokesman Theodore Te, a volunteer lawyer for the Free Legal Assistance Group (FLAG), noted the increase of trolling, hate speech, and red-tagging on social media even after the 2022 elections.

Former Supreme Court spokesman Theodore Te (Jansen Romero / MANILA BULLETIN)

During an interview on Vice President Leni Robredo’s radio show over dzXL, the lawyer said that many victims of hate speech and trolling on social media have been reaching out to FLAG.

FLAG is a free legal and volunteer-driven organization led by human rights lawyer Chel Diokno who ran and lost during the 2022 senatorial race.

“Siguro—hindi ko alam kung pattern, ano—marami ang dumudulog sa amin na requests kung saan ay nagiging biktima sila ng, (Maybe—I don’t know if it is a pattern—there is an increase in requests for us from victims of) well, trolling, red-tagging, hate speech, lalo na sa (especially on) social media,” he said.

“Dumadalas at dumadami. So ‘yun po ang isang napapansin po namin. Siguro ito ay offshoot na po siguro ng eleksyon pero dumadami po ‘yun (It’s becoming frequent and increasing. So, that’s what we noticed. Maybe this is an offshoot maybe of the elections but those are increasing),” Te added.

Diokno lamented that spreading misinformation and fake news on social media is a threat to democracy.

“Talagang nakakabahala iyong pagkalat ng fake news dahil iyan ay nagiging sabagal sa tunay na demokrasya (The proliferation of fake news is really alarming because it’s an obstacle to true democracy),” he said in a previous statement.

“Kung ang halalan halimbawa ang magiging batayan ay fake news, hindi na nating masasabing genuine iyong democracy natin (If the basis of the elections for example is fake news, we can’t say our democracy is genuine),” he added.

Te, however, admitted the challenges of proving “cyberbullying” and “hate speech” since the source of these comments cannot be easily identified as they are hiding behind different names and anonymity.

He also noted that trolls have made it harder to identify the source of disinformation because these are not real people.

As an organization of human rights lawyers, Te said the primary function of FLAG is to determine if human rights have been offended and if the state or government is the one behind the offense.

Unfortunately, FLAG’s volunteer lawyers cannot accommodate all requests, so they had to refer some cases to other lawyers.

Te said FLAG is not the only organization that offers free legal advice and representation.

He mentioned the Integrated Bar of the Philippines (IBP), the National Union of Peoples Lawyers (NUPL), and other clinics run by law students as some of the groups extending free legal aid.

Related Tags

NUPL theodore te Chel Diokno hate speech Flag Red-tagging trolling
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