Falsehoods, social media lies rampant

MANILA, May 08 (BBC): On Monday, voters in the Philippines will pick the nation's next president - amid a tide of falsehoods and social media lies.
"I consider myself a troll - or, politically speaking, I'm a social media marketing consultant."
Jon - not his real name - is part of an industry that could be crucial to the selection of the next president of the Philippines.
He says he's been working most days from 10:00 to 03:00, managing hundreds of Facebook pages and fake profiles for the benefit of his clients - politicians and their campaigns.
He says his customers include governors, congressmen and mayors.
On Monday, Filipino voters will go to the polls to select their next president, along with candidates for several lower offices. It's the first presidential election since Rodrigo Duterte's triumph in 2016 - one which critics say was achieved on the back of a wave of false news.
According to election observers and disinformation experts, the situation hasn't improved since - in fact, it may have even got worse.
Jon is part of this disinformation ecosystem. He says he has around 30 "trolls" working directly for him. Their aim is to boost support for their clients, even if it means spreading falsehoods.
He says he's been operating under the radar for years. Sometimes they're searching for what he calls "skeletons in the closet" - fairly typical opposition research. But at other times, they make things up.
"In 2013, we spread fake news in one of the provinces I was handling," he says, describing how he set up his client's opponent. "We got the top politician's cell phone number and photo-shopped it, then sent out a text message pretending to be him, saying he was looking for a mistress. Eventually, my client won."
To prove the authenticity of his claims, the BBC was sent videos of different accounts which Jon runs on Facebook, as well as screenshots of WhatsApp messages between him and people he works for, bank slips, and fake IDs and SIM cards used to circumvent Facebook verification processes.
Due to concerns expressed about his safety, we are keeping his identity anonymous.
Another trick he uses, he says, is the creation of non-political pages and groups that eventually push out political propaganda.
Meta - which owns Facebook- says that in the Philippines, it has removed a number of networks which have attempted to manipulate people, including a cluster of more than 400 accounts, pages, and groups that violated their policies. In the lead-up to the country's vote, many candidates have aired concerns about the role that disinformation could play in the outcome.
In an interview with a Filipino news channel, presidential candidate Leni Robredo said her initial approach to the problem of fake news - to ignore it - "did not work".
She added: "Lies repeated again and again become the truth."
Another presidential candidate, former boxer Manny Pacquiao, has spoken about the need to "control" fake news and disinformation.