Keywords: misogyny; disinformation; gendered disinformation; Duterte; women in politics

Introduction

Disinformation has been a defining feature of nearly every country's political terrain in the past decade. It has become an important tool in quelling dissent and silencing opponents by a new batch of autocrats worldwide, prompting some to call it digital authoritarianism. Indeed, democratic backsliding, a phenomenon that Aurel Croissant and Larry Diamond argue “has emerged as a conspicuous global challenge”,

is often discussed with disinformation. The advent of new information and communication technologies, while arguably providing a more cost-effective political space, has also become an arena for polarization, deceit, lies, and disinformation. In other words, fact-based information, an important ingredient of democratic discourse, is quickly becoming endangered.

While recognizing that it is not easy to define disinformation both at conceptual and policy levels, this chapter understands this phenomenon as a deliberate and organized attempt by individuals, groups, and even government entities to disseminate falsehoods against a person to benefit from the harm such information will inflict on the victims. The operative words in this definition are that these are “organized” and “deliberate” activities geared towards harming people. Labiste's chapter differentiates between deliberate attempts and those done without malice and intent, which some authors label as misinformation.