“Sometimes, seeing them still making fake news
means they’re really taking the offensive.”
It’s been years passed ever since people seriously take fake news.
Driven by the need to defend their idol, its legacy, and to offend its enemies, fake news has served its purpose- that of serving its supporters a source of their coping mechanism, treating it “legit” as necessarily no matter how false it is. However, despite coping and defending the current order against the opposition and even concerned folks, the reality of these people enjoying fake news meant tolerating disinformation that continues to mislead people.
Quite saddening tho for a reader or a listener in believing those “alternative facts” although that’s their right to listen or read those fake news the way its makers using the right to free speech and press as a license to make false reportage- There are certain stories that are partially true but not entirely so, for example, when a journalist only quotes a portion of what a politician says, misrepresenting their meaning. Once more, this might be done on purpose to persuade readers of a particular opinion or it could be the result of a simple error. In either case, it draws a crowd and has the potential to spread as a "urban myth." But such distortions diminishes the content that makes one believable at first, only to found countered by facts brought by investigation and therefore dismisses the initial believability of the first report, that reflects the maker’s primary objective: that of changing people’s viewpoints in favour of their narrative.
But for those who strongly support this doesn’t matter- for in defence of their patron would say that no matter how false the report would be it is their copium or hopium especially when faced with loss, failure or defeat. Fake news serves both their sword and shield in the face of growing criticism be it during the time of pork barrel scandals of the Aquino administration to that of extrajudicial killings under Duterte.
And supporters, through a proliferation of “news sites” had to churn false reports and fabricated “truths” to and fro to divert attention to the truth if not to assail that of their enemies. It's true that social media platforms give practically everyone the ability to express their ideas or spread tales to large audiences. Creators tend to appeal on to "the man in the street" and arguments must therefore be crude, clear and forcible, with appeal to emotions and instincts, and not the intellect. The problem is that most people don't check the source of the material that they view online before sharing it, which can lead to fake news spreading quickly or even "going viral." With this somehow it has grown more challenging to determine the original source of news articles, which might make it challenging to evaluate their correctness. For coming from its creators truth to them is meaningless and has to be completely submissive to tactics and psychology - as they have to promote the soiled “glories” of their patron regardless of its exaggerations or falsehoods the way they equate his rivals to that of criminals or terrorists.
And regardless of showing them truths, it doesn’t matter for those who believe for it becomes copium or hopium for them knowing that they not just place their hopes on their patron, but also a form of disagreement towards its enemies, the way they cherish a nostalgia for an authoritarian order over that of democracy they perceived as chaos. After all, it doesn’t matter for them about Noynoy Aquino provided an excess budget in the national treasury for it was his time when pork barrel scams emerged! It doesn’t even matter about Duterte’s bloodied sprees such as Operations Tokhang and Double Barrel for it was also his time when infrastructure projects under the “Build Build Build” program was set!
Perhaps, in a time where every "report," whether genuine, partially true, or false, is viewed as a copium or even a hopium, it may become necessary for the people to distinguish further from facts. These makers then and now are in the offensive as their patron tries its best to consolidate by hard and soft means- that even for experts, it can be difficult to sort through the massive amount of information created and shared online because of the popularity of social media sites, which have supplanted reliable information sources despite their potential to quickly spread falsehoods, be they words or actions, to an audience, and sometimes make it very difficult to tell fake content from real content.