By Mary Beatrice Umlas & James Paul Gomez
“Their talents will just be put to waste when they work as trolls. We can contribute so much when it comes to digital industries, not about trolling but more about other things for our society.”
– Jason Vincent Cabañes
Providing social safety nets for digital workers will help eradicate troll farms, according to an outstanding young scientist awardee.
Jason Vincent Cabañes, an associate professor in the Department of Communication at the De La Salle University, said that while there are many talented digital workers in the country, some of them prefer trolling.
“What we have is a country with a lot of talent when it comes to digital work, and what we really need is social safety nets for these workers, so that they don’t get tempted in doing trolling work,” Cabañes said in an event organized by the National Academy of Science and Technology, an attached agency of the Department of Science and Technology.
Cabañes said it is important to know the root cause of disinformation on the digital media.
“We need to understand how disinformation is produced, also what is happening behind the scenes to produce this kind of disinformation about health and vaccines. Why are they doing it?,” he said.
The OYS awardee, who had interviewed trolls, affirmed that their goal is to earn money, hence they disseminate disinformation and misinformation.
“That is why we need to know the different ways and strategies of disinformation producers, so we know what policies we can develop to address the problem,” Cabañes said.
“If they cannot publish false reports, consumers will not have a problem in interpreting the information,” he said.
Cabañes is one of the 10 recipients of 2021 NAST PHL’s OYS Awards.
Other OYS awardees are Reynante Ordonio (Ph.D. Agricultural Science) of the Department of Agriculture-Philippine Rice Research Institute; Marvin Villanueva (Ph.D. Veterinary Medicine) of the DA-Philippine Carabao Center; Rey Donne Papa (Ph.D. Biological Sciences) of the University of Santo Tomas; Pierangeli Vital (Ph.D. Biology) of the University of the Philippines-Diliman; Aaron Don Africa (Ph.D. Electronics and Communications Engineering) of DLSU; Charlle Sy (Ph.D. Industrial and Systems Engineering) of DLSU; Jomar Rabajante (D.Sc. Mathematical and Systems Engineering) of UP Los Baños; Gay Jane Perez (Ph.D. Physics) of UP Diliman; Jason Vincent Cabañes (Ph.D. Communication Studies) of DLSU; and Arnold Salvacion (Ph.D. Environmental Science) of UPLB.
The OYS Award recipients were not more than 40 years old in the year of the awarding and have made exemplary contributions to the country’s science and technology.
NAST PHL organized #PilipiNAST Virtual Kapehan, a series of online dialog between NAST PHL, the media, science communicators, awardees and members of the academe.