Vietnamese accounts spam PBA Party-List Rep. Nograles Facebook posts

Source: MindaNews

DAVAO CITY (MindaNews / 08 May) -- Thousands of Facebook accounts, mostly with Vietnamese profiles, have been flooding angry emojis at some political and non-political contents posted by lawyer and PBA Party-List Rep. Margarita Ignacia "Migs" B. Nograles since December 2023.

The flooding in what seems to be a coordinated manner to the posts of Nograles appears to be an influence operation (IO) by inauthentic Vietnamese troll accounts to disparage her character.

IO involves the use of disinformation, propaganda and other harmful content (such as harassment and attacks), delivered in different formats, in a manner that coerces or manipulates behavior and polarizes society. It is motivated by either financial, geopolitical, cultural, ideological, institutional, and/or policy interests.

According to the DISARM Foundation, a United States-based non-profit engaged in monitoring, and understanding disinformation behavior in online platforms, troll operators create fake, anonymous or inauthentic accounts to push any of the above-stated agenda.

"Trolls operate wherever there's a socially divisive issue, (including) issues that can be politicized," the foundation stated.

Nograles hogged national headlines after she filed on December 4, 2023 House Resolution 1499, urging the National Telecommunications Commission to suspend the operations of Swara Sug Media Corporation, operating under the business name Sonshine Media Network International (SMNI) for "violating the terms and conditions of its franchise under Republic Act No. 11422."

Resolution 1499 cited an earlier resolution and privilege speech on SMNI's alleged "baseless red-tagging, and grave threats against ACT Teachers Party-List Rep. France L. Castro," as well as alleged "fake news peddling" that House Speaker Ferdinand Martin Romualdez spent P1.8 billion for his foreign travel expenses in a year.

Nograles claimed there's "no politics" in her resolution urging the suspension of SMNI's operations.

SMNI is the broadcast arm of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ founded by Pastor Apollo Quiboloy, the self-appointed "Son of God" and spiritual adviser and friend of former President Rodrigo Duterte.

Nograles' action towards SMNI was viewed as a breakaway from Davao City's ruling Duterte family allegedly in her bid to run for mayor in 2025. She denied she will seek the city's top post. Nograles' father, Prospero, an arch-rival of the Duterte patriarch, challenged Duterte for the mayoralty twice but lost. But the Nograles patriarch and the Duterte patriarch reunited when Duterte campaigned for the 2016 Presidential elections. In September 2015, the Nograles patriarch declared support for Duterte should he seek the presidency. Nograles' eldest son Karlo, then 1 District Representative to Congress, was among the first to throw support to Duterte's presidential campaign. Duterte named Karlo Cabinet Secretary in November 2018 and Civil Service Chair in March 2022. Karlo's term as CSC chair ends in February 2029.

Angry emojis from FB posts bearing Vietnamese names, with either little to no followers or newly-opened accounts, began flooding Nograles' account on December 5, a day after she filed Resolution 1499. Her post congratulating Bar exam passers generated 2.2k reactions, at least 551 of them angry emojis.

We manually examined the other Facebook posts of Nograles. Her post at 6 p.m. on December 17 - about her 2022 and 2023 accomplishments as member of the House Representatives - drew 10k reactions - with 3.2k Likes, 2.8k Hearts and 2.3k angry emojis. The angry emojis were mostly from Vietnamese accounts with inauthentic behaviors, many having been created in November 2023 with no friends, likes, followers or posts on their walls.

On January 9, Duterte's eldest son Paolo, 1 District Representative, accused Nograles of being behind the moves in the city to collect signatures purportedly to support Charter Change through People's Initiative (PI). "I was informed that PBA Partylist Rep. Margarita "Migs" Nograles is spearheading the PI movement in Davao City," he said.

Nograles denied the allegation .

In a video post on February 8 titled "Story Time With Atty Migs," where she discussed the PI and the floodwaters in Davao City, Nograles said she was portrayed as the "Wicked Queen of the South" by her critics for allegedly leading the PI in the locality. The post garnered around 3,500 reactions, of which 2.4k are angry and mostly from users with inauthentic Vietnamese profiles.

Another video she posted on February 19 -- a brief recap of her activities from February 12 to 18, including medical and relief missions to different municipalities in the Davao region -- garnered 3,300 reactions as of 3 p.m. on May 3 - 1.6k of them "Haha" reactions and 748 angry emojis, the latter mostly from fake Vietnamese accounts.

The Vietnamese profiles reacted with angry emojis apparently to make it appear that there is public outrage against Nograles.

Further scrolling through Nograles' Facebook page, we found that even non-political messages generated angry emojis from Vietnamese profiles.

On March 8, International Women's Day, Nograles posted about her hardships on being a woman and a member of the House of Representatives at the same time. As of 10:40 a.m. on May 3, it generated 4.2k reactions, 1.2k of them angry ones from users with mostly Vietnamese names. On the other hand, 1.5k users reacted with heart emojis.

Even a Manila Bulletin article she shared, featuring her views on women empowerment, drew 618 angry reactions out of 1k as of 10:06 a.m. on May 3.

Another post of Nograles talking about her dresses from Kultura Filipino, an Arts & Crafts store, garnered 3.9k reactions as of 10:40 a.m on May 3, of which 1.7k were angry emojis.

In our investigation of these Facebook profiles with Vietnamese names, we found out many were inauthentic profiles, as they were created recently, with no friends and do not have any followers, and apparently utilized to influence netizens to be angry at her - both on her political (Davao floodwater, people's initiative) or non-political (fashion, women's month) posts.

Among the trolls who expressed anger at Nograles' posts, an example of an inauthentic account would be Facebook user Trần Thị Thúy Hằng, who identifies himself as an "Alto Singer." The account was created only last January 16 and had no followers as of March 25. Using Google's reverse image search, we found that his profile picture was a sample photo for a Vietnamese Facebook page for photo services.

At least nine posts of Nograles generated thousands of angry reactions. These include her post on her accomplishments in 2022 and 2023 as a House member, Facebook reel talking about Violence Against Women and Children, an apparent personal post about her outfit, two "breakdown" videos of her February events and engagements, and a video promoting her talk show airing in the government-owned People's Television Network, Inc.

MindaNews has repeatedly sought Nograles for comments regarding the Vietnamese trolls reacting with angry emojis on some of her posts through phone call, text message and even by going to her office in Davao City but she has yet to respond.

Troll army

Employing a troll army - or a group of fake, anonymous or inauthentic accounts on Facebook - has been used as a tactic to maneuver or sway social media users to a certain position. The Global Investigative Journalism Network also identifies them as those "who antagonize or provoke others into an emotional response."

This tactic uses thought-provoking and emotional comments that could hijack Facebook's algorithm, or manipulating or exploiting the use of reactions, comments, and shares in a way that benefits a particular individual or group.

Meta does not allow the abuse of Facebook tools to help individuals "misrepresent themselves on Facebook, use fake accounts, artificially boost the popularity of content or engage in behaviors designed to enable other violations under our Community Standards."

The use of troll armies to sway public opinion is not new, with the Philippines globally known as Patient Zero in the war against disinformation.

In November 2017, Freedom House, a United States-based human rights and democracy watchdog, said members of a "keyboard army" were tasked with amplifying the impression of widespread support of the Duterte government's brutal crackdown on the drug trade.

In places like the Philippines, the verification of individual Facebook profiles is not mandatory and there is no current law requiring anyone to present proof of identification.

As such, trolls abuse this loophole to create multiple accounts (and possibly an infinite number of fake email addresses) to create a network of trolls for whatever agenda. This practice is, at the moment, not illegal in the country but this is among Facebook's prohibited acts.