How foreign powers shape what we see and believe online

In this first part of the "Howie Severino Presents" series on foreign influence and disinformation online, Prof. Rachel Khan of the University of the Philippines Department of Journalism discusses Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference or FIMI.

"So, it basically means that there are external influences or influence operators outside the country. It could be a state operation or it could be individuals or private citizens that are not part... Basically, it's external sources of disinformation and that it's coordinated," Khan said.

"So it's a campaign. It's not just like it's different from an influence operator who's let's say a blogger. So that blogger can have their own causes of disinformation," she added.

Khan said FIMI is bigger "because it's a campaign among either several bloggers outside the country or really institutions that either produce inauthentic, coordinated disinformation or have influencers, individual influencers that want to manipulate the local public sphere."

She said FIMI may be initiated by a foreign state or a local party paying an external provider.

“The thing about FIMI, you know that it's coming from outside, but you don't know whether it's operated or the source is the state, an outside state or a local paying an outside provider. That's the thing that it's very hard to distinguish," Khan said.

“Because if I was a local politician and I hired a company in India, you'd have these trolls coming from the outside. And that can be traced that it's coming from the outside. But who's behind it? It's hard to say," she added.

"That's where I think you will really need a collaboration with the platforms to trace the source of... Is it coming from a private entity or a state entity? That's where you need the technology that's beyond a normal fact checker like myself," Khan said. –NB, GMA Integrated News