Copy-paste posts on the nCoV crisis a sign of trolls-at-work —experts

Just before you share sad stories you see online, just pause for a minute and ask yourself: Is this even real?

As the 2019-novel coronavirus rapidly spread all over the world, sob posts have been circulating on Facebook, all trying to get sympathy for Chinese nationals in the Philippines.

If you have come across some of these, you would have noticed something weird: it's the same two stories copy-pasted word for word.

One post tells the story of a Chinese father and his children about to board an elevator in a condominium, but decided to ride separately when Filipino residents arrived.

Another tells the story of a Chinese man asking for directions on the road, who insisted that he was "not sick" and said that he was dropped by his angry taxi driver.

‘Army of trolls at work’

Rachel Khan, a journalism professor from the University of the Philippines, said that "the same form of messaging" was a telltale sign of trolls at work.

"While it is very hard to prove, it does seem that an army of trolls are at work with regard news pertaining to the nCOV, the general sentiment towards Chinese and the initial position of government to allow tourists from China into the country," she told GMA News Online.

President Rodrigo Duterte was initially not inclined to suspend flights between Philippines and China. Online uproar over this decision led to #OustDuterte landing among on the top Twitter trends on Friday.

Ronald Mendoza, the dean of the Ateneo School of Government, said that one possible objective of the copy-pasted sob stories was "to trigger an emotional response, which in turn could temper anti-Chinese sentiment."

On Sunday, Duterte temporarily banned tourists from Mainland China, Hong Kong, and Macau. On Monday, the president told Filipinos to "stop xenophobia" against the Chinese.

‘Sophisticated propaganda machines’

Mendoza said that the spread of copy-paste stories exposed "the possibility that more sophisticated propaganda machines are now practicing in the country."

A 2018 research conducted by Filipino scholars Jonathan Corpus Ong and Jason Vincent Cabañes found that professionals from the public relations and advertising industries are behind disinformation campaigns on social media.

READ: PHL online troll earns between P30,000-P70,000 a month, leader bares

According to the study, executives from these fields assemble "anonymous digital influencers and community-level fake account operators" to engage in "covert digital operations designed to mobilize populist public sentiment."

READ: Inside the mind of an online troll

Last year, Facebook took down 220 pages and 73 accounts related to a digital marketing company for manipulating public information through coordinated inauthentic behavior.

“We can infer from experience and research on troll farms and fake news production that these could be the result of social media manipulation to trigger emotional responses among those viewing and sharing these posts," Mendoza said.

He said that Filipinos can be susceptible and vulnerable to disinformation online because of our high access to social media and a large young and tech-savvy population. —With reports from Angelica Y. Yang/MGP, GMA News