Preliminary Literature Review

Classifying Fake News. In a society where the spread of information is highly rapid and
ubiquitous, the prevalence of fabricated news is unavoidable and consequently, a growing
problem. Fake news is a type of news used to tell and spread fabrication (Besmano et al.,
2017). Fake news has been categorized into two types: Misinformation and Disinformation
(Mendoza et al., 2021; Siar, 2021; Quilinguing, 2019). Misinformation is the unintentional spread
of false information, while disinformation involves disseminating fabricated news with deliberate
intentions. Collins et al. (2021) further classified fake news into four categories: (a) clickbait, (b)
propaganda news stories, (c) satire and parody, and (d) hoaxes.

Fake News in Social Media. A large number of people depend on social media, 99% of
Filipinos access social media platforms (Dela Pena, 2022). People perceive social media as
real-time, less expensive and easier to use (Pazon, 2018). However, with social media
democratizing access to information, the consequences were misinformation and disinformation
(Dela Pena, 2022). With the foregoing, Perez (2021) described social media as a channel
leading to polarization and possessing algorithms which can amplify hateful content. A study by
Pazon (2018) also revealed that social media is perceived as “instrument of lies, deception, and
rumors”. This is further explained by Siar (2021) who pointed out that social media becomes a
potent channel of fake news due to its accessibility and ubiquity. It is likewise alarming to take
note that on a 2021 survey conducted on 327 respondents, 93.27% stated that they encounter
fake news regularly on social media (Business World, 2022). The present literatures cement the
conclusion that social media is a channel where fake news is extremely widespread.

Fake News in Philippine Setting. Filipinos highly utilize the Internet. Seventy-six million
Filipinos have access to the internet (Quilinguing, 2019), and 41% of Filipinos are using it for
news (Dela Pena, 2022). With this large regard to the internet, Filipinos are highly susceptible to
fake news especially, the youth (Pazon, 2018). Besmano et al. (2017) revealed that in the
country, many Facebook users were affected by fake news. The most frequent categories of
fake news identified in the Philippines were: (a) CoViD-19 related information, (b) government’s
actions, and (c) false and misleading statistics (Siar, 2021). With the proliferation of false
information, it is critical to emphasize that more than half of the Filipinos couldn’t distinguish
fake news (Dela Pena, 2022). Hence, as emphasized by Quilinguing (2019), fake news is
becoming a more serious issue at hand.

Countermeasures Against Fake News. Literatures also pointed out several

countermeasures against the dissemination of fake news. Legal measures were issued such as
Presidential Decree No. 90 (Besmano et al., 2017), and Republic Act 10951 (Siar, 2021) to
mitigate the issue of fake news in the Philippines. Researches have also recommended various
practices against fake news: (a) increasing awareness of available fact-checking tools (Siar,
2021), (b) manual checking of news sources (Besmano et al., 2017), and (c) consultation with
experts (Bringula et al., 2021).