When one thinks of disinformation, what first comes to mind? Many might imagine authoritarian governments – maybe Russia or China – running sophisticated troll farms, or perhaps fringe conspiracists warning of secret state plots to inject us with microchips through vaccines.
But in the Philippines’ bustling digital economy a hidden workforce toils away, shaping the nation’s information ecosystem. A far cry from sensationalized images of extremists or ideologues, the rarely-discussed young Filipino disinformation workers seek nothing more than a paycheck. Their story reveals a complex web of economic necessity and moral ambiguity that fuels one of the world’s most active hubs of online disinformation.
