Supporters of the Philippine presidential election favorite Ferdinand Marcos Jr, son of the dictator of the same name, took full advantage of social media to polish the family's reputation.
In that country, one of the most social media users in the world, Facebook, TikTok, Twitter and YouTube were flooded with propaganda messages about the May 9 elections.
Polls predict a landslide victory for Marcos Jr, nicknamed “Bongbong”, after several decades of efforts by his family to return to the presidential palace, from which he had to flee in 1986.
Marcos Jr.'s detractors accuse him of considering his father's two decades of dictatorship as a period of peace and prosperity, and of wanting to wash the image of his family from accusations of human rights violations and diversion of funds.
These efforts seem to bear fruit, especially among young voters.
Born a decade after the popular revolt that led Marcos into exile, 25-year-old Al Contracta is willing to vote for Marcos Jr, based on what he saw on Facebook.
“I learned that infrastructures were built at the time of President Marcos. Since then I have a good image of him,” explained this driver who voted for Rodrigo Duterte in 2016.
This resident of the Manila region believes that “+Bongbong+ “will continue to do what his father started.”
The misinformation surrounding the presidential election mainly concerns two candidates: Marcos Jr and outgoing vice president Leni Robredo, according to analysis by AFP Fact Check and Tsek.ph, the Philippine fact-checking association.
- “Difficult to rival” -
“The data shows that Robredo is the subject of a majority of ill-fated messages and that Marcos Jr has an overwhelming majority of favorable messages,” said Maria Diosa Labiste of Tsek.ph.
This phenomenon has already marked the presidential one in 2016.
Marcos Jr. has the support of his family clan, in the north of the archipelago, and his alliance with Sara Duterte, vice presidential candidate and daughter of the outgoing president.
Social media is still essential, especially Facebook.
Since Marcos Jr.'s narrowly defeated Mrs. Robredo in the 2016 vice presidential race, the pages dedicated to Marcos swarm with false information ranging from the origin of the family's fortunes to the economic advances made by his father.
Network reports reviewed by AFP include that his father's fortune originated from a huge payment in gold made by a client when he was a lawyer.
The AFP verified dozens of false or dubious claims about Robredo, especially altered photos and videos that seek to describe her as stupid and communist.
Over the past year, nearly 75 million reactions, comments or shared links were recorded on more than a hundred pro-Marcos pages, according to the social media analysis tool Crowdtangle.
As a comparison, only 39 million were counted on the same number of pages that promote Robredo.
“It's hard to rival Marcos's machinery, because it started six years ago,” acknowledges Cleve Arguelles, political scientist at De La Salle University in Manila.
- “Long-term investment” -
“They worked hard to be dominant (on social media) and are now reaping the benefits,” he says.
“It's impossible to say how many pages were created by real militants or candidates,” he added.
In January, Twitter suspended more than 300 accounts suspected of being related to supporters of Marcos Jr, for violating the platform's rules on manipulation and spam.
The candidate denied the allegations.
Marcos Jr.'s strength on social media is the result of a “long-term investment” to rehabilitate the family, says Jonathan Corpus Ong, a researcher specializing in disinformation at Harvard University.
After the death of the overthrown dictator in 1989, his heirs returned to the Philippines and did everything possible to return to the political scene at the same time as they distanced themselves from the past.
Members of the clan sometimes present themselves as victims, especially because of the way they are treated by the media.
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