Taming rumors

Last Thursday, late in the afternoon, the UP Diliman chief security officer (CSO) came to see me about a text that one of our offices had just received. Claiming to come from ASG (which we presumed to mean the Abu Sayyaf Group), the text announced the terrorist group was going to take revenge against the government for the military offensive the latter has launched against it. The text claimed bombs had been scattered in UP Diliman and would go off after the 3:30 prayers.

Our CSO was quite calm, but still apprehensive. He felt we should not call off classes or evacuate buildings, and I agreed because this would just cause undue alarm. And if indeed this was a hoax, it would please the prankster. I was with the chair of the University Student Council at that time and I told him, “You heard that, let’s not cause panic. No Facebook postings.”

But even as we decided not to use social media to issue warnings, the CSO and I agreed that we should go into red alert and take extra precautions such as inspection of bags. Custodial and security staff were ordered to “sweep” the campus grounds and the building—meaning, checking for suspicious bags or packages.

Despite the agreement to go low profile, within minutes after the CSO left my office, I was starting to get inquiries, through texts from deans, about the bomb threat.  A few minutes after, the student council chair told me that Facebook warnings were already going around, claiming that one of our officials had suspended classes and ordered buildings evacuated.  Half an hour later, print and broadcast media people were asking for interviews.

It was a crazy evening and it only settled down as clarifications were sent out, this time through text blasts and Facebook.

Rumors, bombings and fear

But over the weekend, a new wave of panic came about as I received texts from anxious parents of students, as well as faculty and student leaders. The texts had the same message which was being passed around. Attributing “reliable intelligence sources,” the message warned that after the Davao bombing, UP Diliman was next, and it advised people to avoid the campus and the UP Town Center, a shopping complex near our campus.

I had to do another round of clarifications in between the great UAAP opening at UST and, into Sunday, the first basketball competitions. This time I had a prepared text to cut and paste: “Baseless rumors. With or without bomb threats, UP Diliman is taking extra precautions.”

Sunday morning I also issued a press statement urging people to be calm, and not to fall into traps that come with rumors.   Rumors come close to being as harmful as the bombs because they are sent out to so many people, who then become anxious, even paranoid. We end up being paralyzed by our own fears, which is what terrorists want.

I can tell you it’s not easy making decisions when rumor mills are activated. I do have nagging fears: What if the rumor turns out to be true?  But that, precisely, is why I’ve told our security people we have to be on high alert, with or without these rumors.

My social science background has helped so much in my work as an administrator, including responding to rumors. Social scientists “love” rumors because they tell us what society’s anxieties are, and give insights into how people’s minds and their social networks work.  For example, for the weekend texts, I have no doubt that there were good intentions involved—maybe, even on the part of the person who first concocted the message. I can imagine someone sending out the text after a friend called to say a relative in military intelligence said during a reunion, “You know, after Davao, maybe it will be Manila.  You heard about that bomb threat last Thursday in UP Diliman?”  Perfect, 1+1 = 3.

Social scientists know, too, that texted and e-mailed warnings are tempting to send and resend because they’re a form of “slacktivism”—from the words “slack” and “activism.” No need to go out into the streets to work for a “cause.” Just a few clicks on your phones and you might have saved friends from a holocaust, not realizing you may have ruined their weekend by causing unnecessary anxieties.

You can’t ban rumors, like Marcos tried but failed to do during martial law. Well, specifically, he did declare “rumor-mongering” illegal, and his target was actually the truth, threatening media practitioners with jail if they reported anything that did not reflect well on the government.

Advice on rumors

But we can tame rumors and I’m offering some practical advice, coming from years of research by sociologists and psychologists mainly, to help you process those social media postings, e-mails and texts.

First, check the attributed source; if there’s none, then the message is highly suspect. Ironically, a text that claims “reliable sources” is actually unreliable. So are “This happened to a friend” (or a friend of a friend; or in the Philippines’ extended social networks, the neighbor of a relative).

Second, check the content of the message itself for inconsistencies and the implausible. In the first warning we got at UP Diliman, we couldn’t help but wonder: How could anyone plant bombs all over UP Diliman without being detected? We have a large security force and some 70,000 informal settlers who are always suspicious of strangers and their movements.

Coming allegedly from an Islamist terrorist group, that text  was strange mentioning “3:30 prayers.”  I later confirmed with our dean of the Institute of Islamic Studies that there is no such thing as “3:30 prayers.”  There is “Asr,” one of five prayer times or salah, intended for the mid-afternoon, but the exact time varies depending on the time of the year and the place where you are in, certainly not at 3:30 in the Philippines.

There were many other tell-tale signs that the text was a hoax, which I won’t divulge for now, but I can tell you that with the help of our “reliable intelligence sources,” we were able to establish where the message was sent from, geographically, and that convinced us even more that this was a hoax.

Third, ask yourself what the motivations might be behind the text, e-mail or social media posting.  Asking people to avoid the campus makes you wonder if perhaps someone (or many people) want to see classes suspended. As for the UP Town Center, some smart people wondered if the message might have come from competing malls—businesses have been known to spread rumors (remember siopao with cat meat and burgers with earthworms as main ingredients?) to harm the competition.

Really now, if you want to avoid possible bombings then avoid crowded places, although that’s becoming difficult to find in urban areas.

Rumors are a variation of urban legends (for example, fetuses in canned meat), which I’ve covered some years back, and which I might do again.  For now though, just remember that spreading rumors help the terrorists.  By staying calm and continuing with our daily lives, we are telling the terrorists: “We will not be intimidated … by rumors, by lies, or by bombs.”

***

mtan@inquirer.com.ph