Category: social media

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….

in fairness to cory

not surprisingly, social media are dredging up the libel case that president cory aquino filed vs. louie beltran in october 1987 and asking if maria ressa’s case is comparable.  but surprisingly, and dismayingly, the video i happened to catch on my facebook newsfeed, courtesy of ONENews #RushHour, opened with this:

V.O.  Rappler CEO Maria Ressa’s libel case may be the first of its kind against a Philippine president…

huh?  ressa filed a libel case against the president?  fake news ba ito o wishful thinking.  lol.  and here’s another booboo, a minute and some 40 seconds in.

V.O.  The Court of Appeals however dismissed the case in 1995 acquitting Soliven and Beltran, but it was too late for Beltran who died a year after the case was dismissed. [bold mine]

HUH?  too late indeed, but certainly not for the reason indicated.  sloppy work, ONENews #RushHour!  bakit nakakalusot ang blatant errors na ganyan?  walang nag-e-edit ng scripts, walang nagmomonitor ng taping, walang fact-checking, masyado kasing madalian, rush nga?

well, hindi naman sila nag-iisa.  also caught a phone interview (by some social media group) of a UP academic who said the cory case happened in 1989.  maybe his source was the online copy of another UP prof’s 2003 column/essay that has mercifully since been corrected.  at least #RushHour got that one right.

but watch the video anyway for cito beltran’s defense of his dad.

CITO BELTRAN. … the president herself pointed out that she could not possibly fit under the bed because there was no space under the bed.  logic lang will say, apparently that she was misled, that my father was calling her a coward….

and read Hiding under the bed, my reaction back in 1995, published in ISYU, jarius bondoc’s all-opinion tabloid, soon after the case was dismissed on appeal.  in fairness to cory.