I could not believe it when the Rappler story came out stating that Peter Tiu Laviña, campaign spokesman of President Rodrigo Duterte used a fake photo to question the human rights critics of the President.
The only thing inaccurate about Laviña's post was that the girl was not Filipina, she is a Brazilian named Evelin Nicole da Silva Sousa. Although she was mistaken for a Filipina, it does not change the fact that she was raped then murdered and that human rights groups are more interested in protecting the rights of the criminals rather than that of the victims.
Was Peter Laviña baited?
Although the simple explanation for Peter's Facebook post was that he simply got careless and posted an unverified photo, I would like to stretch the incident to fit a conspiracy theory.
The scenario goes like this, a yellowtard black ops operator manages to get Peter to see the photo with a caption about a rape. Sensing that the photo is a good opportunity to attack the President's human rights critics, Laviña post the photo with a scathing caption. Then boom! Laviña is 'meme-busted' and his post backfires.
Towards the end of the campaign period, I noticed that the Yellowtards kept coming up with exposés of lies allegedly created by Dutertards.
Being a Dutertard, I was really embarrassed by all the lies, but then I started to suspect something, Why was it that they were so quick in discovering and uncovering the lie? Was it possible that they were the ones creating the lie and also the ones uncovering and exposing it to the public so they brand Dutertards as liars and dishonest?
Soon after I made this observation, ads on TV suggesting that Duterte is a big liar and dishonest came out, and I thought to myself; was the fake news a coincidence or a propaganda tactic?
This TV commercial suggest that Duterte's campaign is dishonest.
I am certain that there were a number of overzealous Duterte supporters also made fake stuff, but I should also commend Mar Roxas' PR people for seizing the opportunity and using the issue of fake stories to brand the Duterte campaign as dirty liars.
Fast forward today and the art of "meme-busting".
Today, the industry of creating fake stories about Duterte is booming and the memebuster.net is busy exposing the lies. Logic tells us that lying is a bad idea because it will destroy one's credibility. Having said that, I go back to my question, why would anyone create fake stories when we know that the lie will be exposed and damage a reputation?
Who will benefit the most from the lie?
Please leave a comment and share your thoughts.
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ReplyDeleteI share with you the big embarrassment.
ReplyDeleteA friend of mine posted in his timeline an analysis of the viral photo of a raped 9-year old. It turned out that, while the photo was genuine, it was a photo from a case that happened in South America, not the Philippines.
There's another one that came across my Newsfeed, a photo of a girl stabbed in the throat. I did my own research and, in a few minutes, I saw that, while the photo was genuine, it was a photo from a gruesome case that happened in Myanmar, not the Philippines.
It is easy to verify the authenticity of images on the internet. People who misrepresent photos are not doing anybody any favor. In fact, they're doing the President a great disservice (or perhaps that's their goal?)
Either way, for goodness sake, whoever you are, just please stop it.