We react with laughing emojis, judgmental remarks, and even verbal attacks on a leader or an ordinary netizen the moment we see something on social media, no fact-checking, no reflection. Often, it is not truth that moves us, but attachment, to the leaders we support and to the opinions we have already made part of ourselves.
Even people in the Church are not spared. When a priest speaks on issues involving a leader we support, we are often quick to join the outrage. We even frown upon our own Church when it speaks on these same issues.
Narratives spread on social media to undermine the credibility of a priest who works for justice and the common good, simply because he speaks on matters involving leaders we support.
We condemn others, calling them “bobo” (ignorant), while remaining unaware that we ourselves may be victims of fake news.
One glaring example is a lawmaker publicly accused several years ago of corruption in a government-owned and controlled health insurance corporation. The accusation spread rapidly on social media and fueled public outrage. To this day, whenever this lawmaker investigates corruption, the same allegation is revived and thrown back, and each time it resurfaces, we react as though a court has already proven guilt.
The sheer number of laughing emojis and reactions begins to feel like proof in itself. Yet these signals can be manufactured, amplified, and deployed to shape perception and preempt judgment.
Emojis and reactions have long been used to promote products and shape consumer behavior. In the same way, they can be weaponized in politics, through networks of fake accounts, sometimes managed in the hundreds by a single operator, to amplify and recycle specific narratives.
Yet we rarely ask the obvious: if the evidence is compelling, why has it not been tested in court?
The fact that the accusation endures without being tested in court suggests that, for some, its value lies not in truth, but in its usefulness as a ready-made attack whenever it is needed.
We have seen it before: a lie, repeated often enough, begins to sound like the truth.
Those who spread fake news have become masters of manipulation. The lies they manufacture become chains that bind both our minds and our emotions.
We become so entrenched that accepting the truth begins to feel like a threat to our own ego.
Fake news has damaged reputations and distorted public judgment. Over time, it can erode even a nation’s sense of truth.
In a space where reactions can be manufactured and narratives recycled, the responsibility to think cannot be outsourced. We have to pause before reacting to anything we see on social media, fact-check, reflect, and only then form an opinion.
