MovePH fact-checking webinar: Combat disinformation in the 2022 elections

With the 2022 elections coming fast, have you encountered a false claim about a certain politician in the past few days? Maybe it was shared by one of your friends in the Facebook timeline?

This election cycle is very different from the past ones. Aside from candidates campaigning online for their desired positions, a global pandemic is still ravaging the streets and there is no end in sight. 

Along with disinformation in the COVID-19 pandemic, unverified reports and misleading posts in political discourse can also spread like wildfire especially during the election season. This is something we have experienced and learned from in the past elections.

With people being locked up inside their homes, most campaign efforts are now done virtually. This unprecedented increase in media technology use also puts more people vulnerable to the abuse and manipulation online.

Now, our battle against disinformation has become more critical. The online world has become the crucial battleground for fighting election-related disinformation and black propaganda. 

Dubious claims, unverified reports, and outright false information abound cyberspace. On top of that, social media trolls in overdrive have made it harder for people to discern what’s right from what’s wrong.

With disinformation for both COVID-19 and the upcoming elections, the need for Filipinos to become media literate has become more urgent. Being online-savvy and being able to detect false information has now become a social responsibility for Filipinos. 

But how can Filipinos help determine what’s true in an online landscape replete with disinformation?

MovePH, Rappler’s civic engagement arm has been leading a series of fact-checking webinars aimed at training participants to spot disinformation online and combat it. 

During the webinar, Raisa Serafica, Rappler’s head of civic engagement, and Gemma Bagayaua-Mendoza, Rappler’s head of digital strategy, will tackle disinformation, fact-checking, and the 2022 elections. Rappler’s researcher/writer Loreben Tuquero will discuss the fact-checking methodology. There will also be a Q&A session and a spot-check exercise.

More than 14,200 participants from all regions of the country and even abroad joined the first 49 sessions of the webinar since it began on April 3, 2020.

Some of these sessions were co-hosted by various academic institutions, youth organizations, and local groups. Interested participants may join any of the upcoming co-hosted fact-checking webinar sessions:

• Friday, February 18, at 4 pm with Xavier School Nuvali and St. Scholastica’s College Manila
• Saturday, February 26, at 4 pm with GoodGovPH

Schools, organizations, and other groups interested in co-hosting an exclusive webinar with MovePH for their community may send an email to move.ph@rappler.com. – Rappler.com