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Syndicate Trolls Used for Propaganda in the

Philippines on Facebook

Working Paper · July 2017

DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.14951.34720

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 Syndicate Trolls Used for Propaganda in the
Philippines on Facebook
Katelyn Anne S. Calma
School of Computing and Information Technologies
Asia Pacific College
Makati City, Philippines
katecalma4@gmail.com
Shania Soleil G. Reyes
School of Computing and Information Technologies
Asia Pacific College
Makati City, Philippines
shaniasoleil08@gmail.com
Abstract— Facebook is a social networking site where people
can connect and share with family and friends online. By the year
2017, there are about 43.9 million Facebook users in the
Philippines as recorded by the Statista Statistics Portal. It then
caught the eye of ill-intentioned people because of the large
number of users. Online trolls started harassing people on
Facebook. Some trolls are part of syndicated used for
propaganda. These trolls sway the public into favoring a certain
political party and ruining the image of the opposing party.
These syndicate online trolls have specific characteristics. It is
through these characteristics that the researchers were able to
create their criteria for identifying a propaganda troll. They
tested three suspected trolls on Facebook using this criteria. The
group then concluded that 66.67% of the time, the researcher’s
propaganda troll identifying criteria will detect a real troll. This
can be concluded from the fact that 2 out of 3 trolls were deemed
as actual trolls by the said criteria.
Index Terms— Facebook, trolls, friends, propaganda,
syndicate
I. INTRODUCTION
In the recent years, social media has become a part of
everyday life. One platform of social media is Facebook.
Facebook is a social networking site where people can connect
and share with family and friends online. It is the world’s
largest social network. It has over a billion users spread across
the world. [1] A large amount of these users is from the
Philippines – prompting the country to be named social
network capital of the world in the year 2011 by the 24/7 Wall
Street blog. As of 2011, it was reported that 93.9% of the
Philippine population was signed up in Facebook. [2] By the
year 2017, there are about 43.9 million Facebook users in the
Philippines as recorded by the Statista Statistics Portal. [3] One
factor for having many users is that an individual would only
Eugene B. Delfin
School of Computing and Information Technologies
Asia Pacific College
Makati City, Philippines
eugenebdelfin@gmail.com
Martha Angela A. Salamat
School of Computing and Information Technologies
Asia Pacific College
Makati City, Philippines
salamat.martha@gmail.com
need to have a valid email and be at least 13 years old to sign
up to Facebook.
With millions of users in the country, Facebook is
becoming a target platform used by online trolls. Trolls are
users who humiliate, inflict pain, and ridicule on a targeted
person. These said trolls post provocative messages or
offensive comments just for fun to attack other Facebook
users - a form of harassment. Furthermore, a troll is a user
who sows discord online by starting arguments or simply
upsetting people while using nicknames or fake names. They
post inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages to
provoke other users. [4] These trolls have even established
syndicates in the online community such as Facebook. There
have been reports of paid trolls who help shift public opinion
on key issues and have also been used as propaganda. These
online troll syndicates start disinformation campaigns that
shape public opinion and tear down reputations. [5]
II. PROBLEM STATEMENT
Social media such as Facebook is meant to be used as a
communication tool. However, Facebook has seemingly lost
its communication purpose over things that aren’t beneficial to
its users these days:
• Facebook is being used to create fake accounts to
harass other people.
• Facebook is being abused and misused for the sake of
political agenda/propaganda.[6]
Syndicated trolls use Facebook for political propaganda.
Some even try to spread false negative information to destroy
an opponent’s image and also false positive ones to raise their
candidate’s reputation. This problem should be addressed
because these fallacies can affect the public’s opinion and the
ruin one’s reputation.
 For example: There was a report that the incoming
presidential spokesperson acknowledged the presence of trolls
to promote the candidacy of Rodrigo Duterte. According to
the news, these trolls were very active during the campaign
period and some were even harassing his opponents and their
supporters online. [7]
According to research, there have been issues that people,
especially teenagers, are being abused anonymously because
of their gender, beliefs, race, religion, etc. just for fun. [8]
People cannot even express their opinions online anymore,
especially when it comes to politics because just one criticism,
one can be attacked by syndicated trolls. This has got to stop
because this is as good as cyberbullying; the only difference is
that the attackers are anonymous.
For instance, the sudden burial of Marcos triggered a lot of
people. Therefore, it had caused thousands of reactions from
the people; be it a supporter or an anti-Marcos protester. There
was a report saying that anti-Marcos protesters, mostly women
in their 20s, were attacked in the comment sections of
Facebook posts. It was stated that the comments were sexually
graphic and life-threatening and women netizen also engaged
in the harassment. [9]
III. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
How do syndicated trolls act on the Propaganda war in the
Philippines? According to merriam-webster.com, Syndicate
means an association of persons officially authorized to
undertake a duty or negotiate business. Meanwhile online
trolling is an act of flaming, bullying and expressing illogical
arguments to hurt someone else’s emotion or belief.
However, in the Philippines, syndicated online trolling is
very evident - most especially on Facebook. These trolls’ main
goal is to create fake news to disseminate wrong information
to the public and to destroy the image of a famous personality,
most especially in politics.
Their scheme is that politicians would hire several people to
commence these acts. These people would create different
pages in Facebook to show support for the candidate who
hired them. In this process, they would not only share posts
that build up the reputation of their candidate but also, they
would create an article/post themselves, wherein, it contains
fake information or fake news of the opposing party. Also,
they do not only operate on a single page, they publish
different Facebook pages with different names e.g. Duterte
News Today, Newstrendph, Duterte Die Hard Supporters, dds
We Support Vice President Leni Robredo etc. Now, when a
page that is part of this syndicate posts an article, all the pages
that is part of the syndicate will share this post so that many
people would be able to see it and will be convinced that it is
real for many people believe too by sharing it. These men do
not only create Facebook pages, but Facebook profiles too.
They do share the same tactics and scheme as the pages.
To determine whether a Facebook profile is a troll or not,
here are their characteristics:
• They have less than 30-70 friends on Facebook
• They liked pages such as the pages mentioned above
(mocha uson blog, duterte news today, newstrendph,
we support vice president leni robredo etc.)
• They do not have profile pictures; or if they do, they
used anime characters, celebrities, or even steals
someone’s real profile picture to make it theirs
• They do not have headers or if they do, they use too
mainstream pictures
• No basic information
• Their account was created somewhere between 2014
or earlier. It is very timely, close to the election date
• They do not post regularly, or even they only have
one profile picture and no other photos.
• [10] Many trolls befriend each other on Facebook.
Therefore, they often have similar profile types.
When an article is posted online, usually, the syndicated
Facebook pages and profiles share the same caption as if it
was literally copy pasted. It was not a shared command
because the post was originated by the said Facebook profile
or page. This is because, if an article was taken down by
Facebook for disseminating wrong information, it will have
different copies across different accounts. This is to avoid
Facebook from easily taking down these posts. Also, the
caption of the posts are usually in uppercased characters to
emphasize the information and attract normal users.
When trolls join an online argument or debate, their
arguments are usually illogical and empty. They attack the
opposing team by things that are not related from the topic.
Also, they curse and use bad language a lot. Most of the time,
they state facts that are not supported by any references or
sources. They usually comment on some post they do not like
simultaneously so other readers may favor them than the other
side because they seem to be the majority.
To test this theory on how to identify propaganda trolls, we
went on political pages on Facebook such as. Here the
researchers read some of the page’s posts. They selected users
who posted angry comments/ provocative arguments/ violent
reactions on one of the page’s posts. They then selected three
users and used their profiles as their suspected trolls in the
study. They selected both Duterte supporters and Robredo
supporters.
These said profiles are the ff:
1. Profile A.: Leonora Castillano
Figure 1. Shows comment posted by Leonora Castillano
 Figure 2. Shows Leonora Castillano’s profile account.
2. Profile B.: Maria Evelyn Untal
Figure 3. Shows comment posted by Maria Evelyn Untal
Figure 4. Shows Maria Evelyn Untal’s profile account
3. Profile C. : Lilian Postrado
Figure 5. Shows comment posted by Lilian Postrado
Figure 6. Shows Lilian Postrado’s profile account
These profiles (A, B, and C) were tested against the troll
identifying criteria created by the group based on their
research. In order to be deemed as a troll, the profile must
garner at least 60 points or 60% of the criteria that amounts to
a total of 100 points. To show that the criteria does identify
propaganda trolls and not real people, we tested 1 active user
of Facebook and 1 dormant user.
Legitimate Users:
1. Active user – the researchers used one of their member’s
actual Facebook profile.
Figure 7. shows Active user, Kate Calma’s profile account.
2. Dormant user – the researcher’s used one of its member’s
grandfather as a dormant user. This dormant user seldom
posts, goes online and has few friends on Facebook.
Figure 8. Shows dormant user, Edward A. Barrios’s profile
account

Criteria

Figure 9. Shows Criteria for Identifying a propaganda

troll.

It can be seen that Profile A, Leonora Castillano

garnered 76 points or 76%. Meanwhile Profile B, Maria
Evelyn Untal, failed with 25 points or 25%. Profile C., Lilian
Postrado garnered 61 points or 61%. It can be seen that Profile
A and C are certified propaganda trolls by the researcher’s
criteria. Meanwhile, Profile B appears to be a real person and
not a troll. Furthermore, Active User garnered a total of 6
points or 6% and dormant user scored 21 points or 21%. This
shows that the criteria does not mistake legitimate users as
propaganda trolls.

IV. CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION

Based on the findings of this study, we conclude that trolls
can be used for syndicated propaganda on Facebook. They can
be hired by politicians to create and spread fake news about
the opposing political party to destroy their image. They create
different accounts and pages, these pages coordinate with one
another to support the politician that hired them.
We recommend that users should be aware and careful as to
not believe everything they read on Facebook for some of
these can be incorrect information made by syndicate trolls
and that they should also be mindful of the characteristic of
these syndicate trolls to avoid and report them.
In addition, the researchers also recommend users to use
Perspective, an API developed by Google to detect trolls and
fight online harassment. There is a demo version of this tool
on their website where anyone can type in a comment to see
how “toxic” it is. [11]
 We also recommend that future researchers who would like
to take this project upon themselves to develop a cookie-based
detection application or system to detect the cookies of a user
or a troll. By doing so, they will be able to tell the activity of
the user based on their cookies and will help them determine if
that user is a troll or not. They may also consider applying the
study exploring the Security Issues behind Facebook’s User
Tracking from its “Big Data” for Competitive Intelligence to
give them further knowledge and information. [12]
Furthermore, the group concludes that 66.67% of the time,
the researcher’s propaganda troll identifying criteria will
detect a real troll. This can be concluded from the fact that 2
out of 3 trolls were deemed as actual trolls by the said criteria.
The proposed criteria suggests that in order to be a troll, there
are 11 qualifications. A propaganda troll must have less than
70 friends on Facebook, like political fan pages, not use their
actual face as profile pictures, does not have a unique header
nor any basic information, created near the year 2014, does
not post regularly, only has one profile picture or do not have
any pictures at all, are friends with other trolls on Facebook
and lastly, must always share political posts.
The group recommends that future researchers create an
application or program to identify syndicate propaganda trolls.
This would be more efficient than manually identifying trolls.
It would save time and not be subjective since a program does
not judge like a human.
Moreover, there is a website called Trolldor, which can
help detect Twitter trolls. It is like a database or a blacklist for
Twitter trolls. In this website, you can search for a suspicious
account and it will show you the account’s status and it will
also allow you to report the account. A user would be
automatically listed as a troll once he/she gets three troll
reports. Trolldor can help users to identify a troll. Therefore,
the group also recommends the future researchers to develop a
website for Facebook users that is similar to Trolldor. [13]
REFERENCES
[1] GCF LearnFree.org, “What is Facebook?,”.
(https://www.gcflearnfree.org/facebook101/what-is-
facebook/1/4)
[2] Jon Russell, “Philippines Named Social Networking Capital
of the World,” 15 May 2011.
(https://asiancorrespondent.com/2011/05/philippines-named-
the-social-networking-capital-of-the-world-indonesia-malaysia-
amongst-top-10/#6sJQpj6AQzJmkBF0.97)
[3] Statista, “Number of Facebook users in the Philippines from
2015 to 2021 (in millions),”
(https://www.statista.com/statistics/490455/number-of-
philippines-facebook-users/)
[4] Marita Galvez, “'Trolling' Is an Actual Profession That Can
Make P100k Monthly,” 06 October 2016
(http://says.com/ph/news/trolling-is-an-actual-profession-that-
can-make-p100k-monthly
[5] Maria A. Ressa, “Propaganda War: Weaponizing the
Internet,” 03 October 2016
(http://www.rappler.com/nation/148007-propaganda-war-
weaponizing-internet)
[6] Dave Neal, “Facebook admits that political groups
have abused it for propaganda purposes,” The Inquirer, 28
April 2017.
(https://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/3009245/face
book-admits-that-political-groups-have-abused-it-for-
propaganda-purposes)
[7] Politiko, “Duterte camp recognized the power of
‘trolls’ but denied paying them,” 27 June 2016,
(http://politics.com.ph/duterte-spox-recognized-power-
trolls-denied-paying/)
[8] Aisha Gani, “Internet trolling: quarter of teenagers
suffered online abuse last year,” The Guardian, 09
February 2016, (https://www.theguardian.com/uk-
news/2016/feb/09/internet-trolling-teenagers-online-
abuse-hate-cyberbullying)
[9] Lara Tan, “Anti-Marcos protesters sexually harassed
online, lawyer free legal aid,” 22 November 2016, CNN
Philippines,
(http://cnnphilippines.com/news/2016/11/21/Marcos-
burial-online-threats-sexual-attacks-misogyny.html)
[10] Jan Irvin, “How to Identify and Remove Facebook
Trolls, Gang-Stalkers and Disinfo Agents”, 16 December
2014, Gnostic Media,
(http://www.gnosticmedia.com/IdentifyRemoveFacebookT
rollsAgents)
[11] Lauren Goode, “Google just made its troll-detecting
software available to developers”, 23 February 2017, The
Verge
(https://www.theverge.com/2017/2/23/14713496/google-
jigsaw-perspective-software-ai-machine-learning-
developers)
[12] Justin David Pineda, “Exploring the Security Issues
behind Facebook’s User Tracking from its ‘Big Data’ for
Competitive Intelligence”, 01 November 2016, Research
Gate,
(https://www.researchgate.net/publication/309571165_Ex
ploring_the_Security_Issues_behind_Facebook%27s_Use
r_Tracking_from_its_%27Big_Data%27_for_Competitiv
e_Intelligence)
[13] Mike Wehner, “Trolldor tells you if someone is a
Twitter troll”, 18 August 2014, The Daily Dot
(https://www.dailydot.com/debug/twitter-troll-trolldor/)
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