Pasig City Mayor Vico Sotto revealed on Friday, October 4, that he had identified trolls after observing unusual activity on his official social media account.
Screen grab from Mayor Vico's Facebook page
He noted that the discovery was made following a post regarding the inauguration of the ACBC and CHB-lined canal construction in Barangay Ugong, which took place on September 6.
Sotto mentioned that the post received numerous 'angry' and 'haha' reactions from various individuals. However, upon further investigation, he found that all the accounts exhibited identical profile information.
“Nagtaka ako bakit naman nagalit yung mga tao? Hindi pala totoong mga ‘yun. Mga troll pala. Tinignan natin yung mga profile, humingi ako ng tulong sa kaibigan ko, inisa-isa niya (I was confused as to why there was such anger. It turned out that these were not genuine individuals, but rather trolls. We examined their profiles, and I enlisted a friend's assistance to review them individually)," Sotto elaborated.
“At ito yung mas mabigat pa doon, yung mga profile na ‘yan sila mismo naka-link sa mga bilihan ng mga troll, ng mga fake accounts [at] fake engagements sa Facebook (What is even more concerning is that these profiles are directly associated with vendors of trolls, fake accounts, and fake engagements on Facebook)," he added.
Sotto emphasized that the presence of trolls and such tactics is no longer surprising and called upon the public, particularly the residents of Pasig, to assist the local government in demonstrating that dishonest political practices will not succeed in Pasig.
“Ipakita po natin na hindi na uubra ang luma at maduming stilo ng pulitika sa lungsod ng Pasig… uri ng panloloko ang paggamit ng paid trolls at social media engagement. Alam kong ‘normal’ na ito sa ngayon, pero di pa rin natin siya gagawin (Let us demonstrate that the outdated and corrupt methods of politics will no longer prevail in the city of Pasig. The use of paid trolls and manipulated social media engagement constitutes a form of deception. While I recognize that this has become 'normal,' we will not engage in such practices)," he asserted.