Category: social media

On Tiktok, Marcos was winning long before voting ended

Katrina Stuart Santiago

I’ve lived on the Marcos Tiktok algorithm since February this year, a deliberate effort to understand better what was happening on the platform that seems to evade whatever kind of fact-checking, quick responses, and take-downs we see of Marcos content on Facebook. It was easy to get on the algorithm: all content I posted had the most consistent Marcos hashtags; all videos I watched, liked, and saved were pro-Marcos.

Soon enough, the algorithm surfaced what were clear content buckets — a set of digital content categories for any given project. There was standard funny meme content as response to anti-Marcos articles from media, and anti-Marcos statements from celebrities, the Liberal Party, and the Left, where the standard strategy is to dismiss the material as dilawan-Liberal (yellow-Liberal) or terorista (terrorist).

Another bucket focused on disinformation, whether videos of purported crowds at Marcos-Duterte rallies that were so obviously from other events, or criticism of Robredo that builds on the narrative of her as incompetent and unpresidential, one they’ve sustained for six years.

But what surprised was how majority of what went on my feed was of the third bucket that focused primarily on fan content. Here, the Marcos family is re-framed as an aspirational one, re-imagined for a contemporary audience that’s hooked on reality TV and celebrity and influencer culture on social media. Here, Ferdinand and Imelda are called Papa FEM and Mama Meldy, and their children are Manang Imee (older sister Imee), Tita Irene (Aunt Irene), and Bongget (Ferdinand Jr., aka Bongbong).

So named, they are defamiliarized and decontextualized from existing historical accounts of the Marcos regime — its violence, plunder, and corruption. So decontextualized, they are reintroduced and re-contextualized into a present space on Tiktok, where they are a family we aspire to, a wish-fulfillment as they are impossible dream — it’s exactly the same kind of appeal that celebrity lifestyles have on fans, including the push-and-pull between access and distance.

All of these create a completely different universe that’s happening right under our noses, and as we know now, it is a world-building that can affect — and win — elections.

And election day might be the best proof of how separate and distinct this universe is. We woke to election day on May 9, 2022 hearing news of vote counting machine (VCM) malfunctions. We watched our Facebook and Twitter feeds fill up with stories of voters suffering through lines growing longer by the hour, with people leaving and returning to their polling precincts only to find that VCMs had yet to be fixed or replaced. We heard the COMELEC insist that there was nothing irregular about voters being told they should just fill up their ballots and leave it behind for mass feeding into VCMs, never mind that this means voters are unable to ensure their votes are counted.

But election day looked very different over at the Marcos Tiktok algorithm. For one thing, they already had vote counts that started as early as 8:20 a.m., only a little over an hour after the polls opened at 7:00 a.m.

The account @mf posted an image of purported 8:20 AM results spliced with an image of Bongbong Marcos in line to cast his votes. That tally read 504,791 votes for Marcos, and 178,923 votes for Leni Robredo. This was viewed 629,000 times.

@EditsMrcos Araneta had a video slide show of purported election results from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. showing Marcos consistently in the lead across purported results for 11:30 a.m., noon, 12:30 p.m., 1:30 p.m. Posted at 3:00 p.m., this is given the background music of “We Are The Champions,” and the caption claiming that these are CALABARZON numbers. This was viewed 1.6 million times.

There were still four hours to go before polling precincts were to close at 7:00 p.m.

The 6:48PM results would be released by another account @Edgar Calma, with Marcos’s number at 22,259,467, and Robredo’s at 10,425,315. The text warns of brownouts, insinuating that this is how Marcos can be cheated. This was viewed 76,200 times.

As is the nature of the Marcos Tiktok campaign, these types of content appeared over and over across accounts, none of which are influencer in the sense that they are owned by “known” or “(in)famous” people. The same content appeared in different forms, with different music, and diverse captions. Some accounts posted the card showing numbers for an 11:00 a.m. count, where Marcos has over 1.17 million votes and Robredo over 978,000 votes, and simply caption these with variations of “Pray for BBM-Sara.”

Another account that on election day was @BBM?????? and a day after had become @Nantez?????? posted the same card with a deepfake video of the three Spiderman actors dancing to the music of Ghostface Playa that has one line: “Oh Shit.” The account captions the post with: “ez win na guys.” This had been viewed 86,000 times.

The same account also posted a video for the purported count for 3:30 p.m., showing Marcos with 4.88 million votes and Robredo with 3.11 million. The form is exactly the same as the previously mentioned post, but the caption reads: “Update guys. Sana di na magbrownout. HAHAHAHAHA” This one was viewed 1.9 million times.

As is on Tiktok, when you are on an algorithm such as that of the Marcoses’, this type of content is interspersed with fan content videos. For May 9, this meant election day content showing footage of Marcos at the voting precinct, Imelda arriving and being assisted by daughter Irene, and footage of the family waiting to vote, seated at the precinct.

Footage of Irene just shifting in her seat was created as content for account @RIRI, with the music from Shanti Dope’s “Nadarang,” and captioned: “the way she turn her feet.” This has had more than 110,000 views.

Video just showing Imelda arriving with Irene, asking what they are doing today, and Irene responding by putting up her index finger to indicate that they are voting, has garnered 913.8 thousand views. Account @irenemarcossimp captions it: “ang cute na naman ng hand gesture ni irene.”

Footage of Marcos falling in line and feeding his ballot into the VCM posted by @MarcosDuterte???????????? garnered 2.4 million views, and 375.7 thousand likes. The music is Zeus’s “A Thousand Years,” and the caption reads “Lord ibigay muna sa amin itong taong toh! Ang tagal po naming naghintay! ??????????”

On election day, that fan content was interspersed with a fake, baseless electoral count, while voting was still going on. Those on the Marcos-Duterte algorithm would’ve seen this content and arguably been bolstered by the “sure win” they were seeing on their screens — fake as it was. All day, this Marcos algorithm was setting the stage for a win. By the time those unofficial, partial results started being shown on TV, the people on their algorithm were pumped for it, their dream realized long before the count even becomes official.

While it is easy to dismiss this as proof of how disinformation on platforms like Tiktok (and Facebook) have ruined democratic institutions like the elections, the more analytical, important point to be made here is that people made this happen. The platforms are one thing, and certainly could do better at helping control the spread of disinformation; but this has always been about the people who know to use these platforms to serve the interests of those who will pay premium for specific outcomes.

Fan content is interesting because it surfaces actual people, on accounts that have faces on them, using diverse voices, cutting across generations, with different perspectives, all believing in the Marcoses’ inevitable and rightful return to power. It is a particular public that it surfaces, one that we should want to understand and speak to, not dismiss and deem as zombies or victims with no opinion, creativity, or point-of-view.

As with Duterte propagandists the past six years, these are real people who actually believe in Marcos, his family, and all that they now stand for, refashioned and reframed as they are for Tiktok.

And while the communication strategists responsible for the creation of this universe have yet to surface, there is no reason to blame this all on these public actors whose sincerity and agency are difficult to question — even as they are on the other side of the democratic space we all inhabit. What we can do for now is to understand better what the battlefield looks like, so we can finally and really take part in the battle.

Otherwise, this algorithm is also poised to win 2028 for Sara Duterte. They’ve also been churning out content for that the past six months.

The tale of an online mob #NachoDomingo

Katrina S.S.

I happened upon the case of Nacho Domingo too late. It was Sunday, September 29. I asked a friend who had posted about social media responsibility and online mobs what he was talking about, and he told me to do a Twitter search for his name.

It yielded little, though the few tweets that came up were ones of mourning and condolences, a lot of regret. By later in the day more and more tweets surfaced that were turning defensive: this is about frat culture, they said. The system is to blame for his death, many others said.

The blame game on Twitter seeped through the rest of the week, with some accounts coming out with names of “people who killed Nacho,” which just continued the cycle of blaming and shaming, bullying and mob rule that brought upon us this death to begin with.

READ ON…

NACHO, 22

sharing here katrina’s facebook posts on ignacio “nacho” domingo.  we didn’t know him personally, had not heard of him (yet–what a waste), this UP scholar and student leader, apparently a most promising and gifted young man, whose untimely and tragic death so crushed us that we haven’t been able to get it, him, out of our minds, needing to figure out what it was all about, wanting to understand why and how and who and when events escalated so quickly, to a point of no return.  this is neither to sensationalize the loss nor to intrude on the family’s privacy, rather, to shed light on, the better to grasp, what went wrong, and to beg that we all guard against it happening ever again.  then nacho would not have died in vain.

Katrina Stuart Santiago

2 October at 12:43

Those screencaps were released ANONYMOUSLY by a new (now deleted) Twitter account, and dated from two years ago. It was released Sept 25 (11:00AM) by an account called @rhosigrambles. By the afternoon UP ALYANSA (4:31PM) and KALikha: Kasama Ka sa Paglikha ng Arte at Literatura Para sa Bayan (7:49PM) released statements of condemnation.

By early morning of Sept 26 (1:08AM) the UP College of Mass Communication Student Council released a condemnation, promising accountability for any form of “impunity.” By the afternoon, STAND UP (4:20PM) called out the “offenders” for “bastardizing principles.” Students’ Rights and Welfare Philippines (9:35PM) followed suit talking about the “safety of our educational institutions” and stating “UP Sigma Rho Fraternity, particularly its members <name 1>, <name 2>, and <name 3>, who were PROVEN VIA SCREENSHOTS and testimonies to be involved in hazing, as well as sexual and derogatory remarks made on and regarding certain women, to reassess its reasons for existence, present themselves in investigations, hold itself accountable, and thus face the consequences of their actions.” (all caps mine)

By Sept 27 (4:34PM), the University of the Philippines Administration had announced that they were “investigating allegations” and have placed “suspects on preventive suspension” and “will file formal charges where there is evidence to support such a move.” The UP Diliman University Student Council (5:58PM) followed suit with its own statement talking about disciplinary action.

These official statements are all based on screencaps of a conversation from TWO YEARS AGO, released anonymously. A conversation that involved students who were being called “suspects,” and already penalized by the university with preventive suspension, with not enough evidence to file formal charges.

This was NOT just about social media lynch mobs. This was about institutions quickly and swiftly and thoughtlessly making decisions given those mobs. No one’s hands are clean. Certainly NOT the University’s, and NOT its organizations.

October 3

I have 122 screencaps as we speak, mining whatever is still left of tweets that were posted from Wednesday, Sept 25, to Sept 28 when he died, to the post-narratives since. I have gone back to all the statements that were posted. I’m told that before his death, the Mass Comm Student Council FB comments sections were terrible, but I missed that completely.

In fact, I missed this whole thing as it was happening — my Twitter network is obviously removed from it. But there was still enough to go back to, and while it takes time to find the right key words, once you find it, it’s a very depressing blackhole that proves why and how we have come to this point.

I have no time as of yet to write about this at length. But here’s a thought: the noise of groups and the social media mob, demanding quick action and condemnation, there is a downside to that. There is a massive problem with that, especially when we’re talking about private individuals, about REAL PEOPLE. Not everyone is Duterte. Not everyone is just operating with impunity and is a product of the macho-fascist rule. I don’t know why we even have to remind ourselves that.

A question: Where was hunos-dili in this case? When even the institutions did not practice restraint, did not spend some time to put things in perspective, did not even ask questions about whether or not responses are commensurate, or did not wonder about the possibility that these kids don’t even believe what they believed 2 years ago. When institutions are at the mercy of mob rule — who then is in control? Whose responsibility is it to make sure the kids are okay?

#StateU #SocialMediaCrisis #SocialMediaPH 
#LynchMobs #MobRule #CallOutCulture

sex & writing workshops, social media & lynch mobs

INSTITUTIONAL, NERVOUS, AND OTHER BREAKDOWNS
Katrina S.S.

The first time a young writer came out with a Facebook status (dated August 2) about having been taken “sexual advantage” of in a writing workshop, I shared it with a very clear statement about silence. Fresh from the CNN Life panel for the Readers and Writers Fest where we were asked what is the biggest realization we’ve had about the cultural sector, I said that it is about how much of it operates on silence. We don’t know what’s going on, how things are decided, how the systems work, and all that we ever discuss is what we see on the surface: the finished art work, the published piece, the film, the TV show, the dress. But the work that goes into that, the institutions that come into play, the oppressions that are intrinsic to that system — we are kept in the dark about these things. After all, we can be so aware of power relations and capital, and still deny what that truly means.

Read on….