An image is making the rounds online claiming that the news arm of Sonshine Media Network International (SMNI) tweeted about trending hashtags this week calling for the resignation of President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos. It is fake.
On Sept. 6, several Facebook (FB) groups and pages circulated a screenshot of a purported Sept. 5 tweet of SMNI News. It read:
“LOOK: The hashtag #LetSaraLead has topped Philippine Twitter trends as of 11PM on Monday after former BBM supporters called for Pres. Bongbong Marcos Jr. to resign over ‘broken promises.’
‘Magparty ka na lang’ and #BBMResign are also among the trending topics.”
In the screenshot, SMNI News bore the Twitter username smnimews — with the misspelled name of the organization already a red flag.
SMNI News never published the tweet on any of their social media pages. A satirical FB account is the origin of the made-up tweet.
Satire FB page Amor Powers first posted the fake tweet on Sept. 6. The phrase “satire only” was written in small and nearly indistinguishable letters at the bottom right corner of the image.
According to Twitter analytics tool GetDayTrends, the hashtags #LetSaraLead and #BBMResign and the phrase “Magparty ka nalang” (Go and just party) never trended on Sept. 5.
Still, some netizens believed the made-up tweet and said the Marcos-Duterte tandem’s “true colors” are finally emerging as they start “struggling for the seat of power.”
The fictitious tweet appeared four days after Marcos designated Vice President Sara Duterte-Carpio as officer-in-charge as he went on state visits to Indonesia and Singapore, which were his first foreign trips as president.
At least 63 FB groups and pages have circulated the fake tweet that garnered more than 20,000 interactions, according to CrowdTangle, a social media monitoring tool. Its top traffic generators are FB pages Ang Kapal Na Nga, Ang Kupal Pa (created on Jan. 16, 2014), Good Governance Supporter (July 17, 2021) and Mahal Ko Ang Pilipinas (Oct. 20, 2018).
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(Editor’s Note: VERA Files has partnered with Facebook to fight the spread of disinformation. Find out more about this partnership and our methodology.)
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