#entryessay

Nowadays, news has become more accessible thanks to the social media. People get updated faster regarding current events and other affairs including celebrities, politicians, and other personalities. However, due to political propaganda and disputes, social media has become a network for propagating a lot of news, including fake news. With the growing population of social media users, many can be lured into believing such news. This could result to heated debates, confusions and especially conflicts within groups of people.

           If a piece of information is circulated online, it depends on the reader on how he/she would interpret it. Some people tend to show bias especially when a post or news supports their ideas of affiliations. For example, supporters of a political leader, like President Duterte, would applaud posts in favor of the president and bash or go against posts that are against the president. This behavior led to numerous outbreaks and debates on social media on every post between the supporters of a certain politician or idea and the opposition. They use their allegiance as basis for believing pieces of information, even if the said information is true or not. There are also some people who try to analyze this information by checking for credibility, facts and statistics. Some researchers are able to decipher what is fake news or not through this method. On the case of the PCOO Secretary Mocha Uson back in May 28, 2017, she posted a photo of “Filipino soldiers kneeling to pray”. However, her post backfired from citizens, stating that the actual photo was a group of soldiers from Honduras. This sparked controversies online, with people questioning the credibility of Mocha Uson.

           How do we know if something is fake news or not? In order to flag something as fake or not, we must first be open to different sides of the idea. Credibility and authenticity are also key factors in determining a trustworthy source of information. We cannot directly conclude that something we just read or heard is true without doing our own analysis.

           Fake news has become very misleading, even being able to fool news columnists like in the case of Yen Makabenta. He claimed that Nikki Hailey told that the president should be “given space to run his nation”. However, it turns out that the information he got was from a Al Jazeera copied site built to spread fake news. However, it did not take too long for Duterte supporters to immediately spread the news through social media before realizing it was fake news.

           In order to check if a piece of information is credible, we must be really careful in choosing our own sources and inspect for facts. Fake news is rapidly spreading, and we must become more aware of this. Responsible use of social media and close discerning will help us know fake news and authentic news. If we don’t become careful, we might end up blindly believing false ideals.

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        With the abundance of talent shows airing in the Philippine media, singing has no doubt been the forte of most people who enter said contests. Filipinos are commonly known to be rambunctious at celebrations. There are lots of food, guests, alcohol, gossip, and fun parlor/gambling games. Undeniably, a Filipino celebration would not be a Filipino celebration without the presence of a karaoke. Drunk adults and energetic children peruse the song list and sing out their feelings (for the drunk ones) or their shyness (for the little ones). Most singers today have been discovered and heard first through the ever famous karaoke. But Filipinos are also adept at many other forms of music like choral and classical singing and the more appreciated, pop singing. Orchestras and bands also feature a multitude of Filipinos.

           Philippine media has no lack of musical talents. Everyday, singers are intensively trained to hit the highest notes and look good while doing it. Shows like, The Voice, Pilipinas Got Talent, and Showtime pride themselves on discovering new blood to offer up to the singing industry. But are these people we call singers live up to that name, or are they just people who shout and look good doing it?

           19 year old singer, Rhap Salazar shook the music and entertainment scene of the country by tweeting about “non-singers” who lip sync on shows and even get signed to do albums. According to most netizens, these “non-singers” shout even the lowest notes, sing without proper technique and are just basically people who look like they’re singing when most of their notes are auto-tuned. Most people sided with Rhap’s opinion stating that he actually had to work and train very hard before he was even called a singer. I, being trained in choral singing, side with him as well but also think that the masses are practicing what I would like to call “wrong culture appreciation”.