MANILA: The head of a Philippine online news site battling revocation of its licence on Tuesday said some governments have sought to "silence dissent" through the proliferation of fake news, flooding social media with hate messages.
There is now state-sponsored "patriotic trolling" designed to harass and intimidate, Maria Ressa, the chief executive of the news site, Rappler, told senators holding an inquiry into the spread of fake news in the Philippines.
"Social media provided cheap armies to potential authoritarian and dictators to control and manipulate public opinion," Ressa said, citing a study in which Rappler participated that is set to be released in the next few months.
She did not provide details of the study, but said it mirrored the findings of a survey of 65 countries released last November by a US-based group, Freedom House, that showed China and Russia were flooding social media with lies and disinformation, rather than seeking to control them.
Ressa also demonstrated for the senators how fake news was manufactured by false accounts and spread in Facebook, the top social media platform in the Philippines, with nearly 70 million users.
Governments have "weaponised the internet" to push propaganda, she said, but joined other journalists, bloggers and even the government's communications office, to resist senators' plans for measures to rein in social media.
WATCH: If there's no fake news, we wouldn't know what's true – Roque. Full story: https://t.co/uGD63hxfom pic.twitter.com/zezHHkfwf2
— Rappler (@rapplerdotcom) January 29, 2018