Punongbayan is an assistant professor at the University of the Philippines School of Economics (UPSE) and writes a weekly economics column for Rappler.

In 2023, he published his first book, False Nostalgia: The Marcos ‘Golden Age’ Myths and How to Debunk Them, which he said was the “culmination of nearly seven years’ worth of research on Martial Law economics,” starting with his Rappler article in March 2016.

“I’m deeply humbled to receive this prestigious award. I dedicate this to my friends, colleagues, and mentors who have inspired me to share the insights of economics far and wide, and also to speak truth to power,” Punongbayan told Rappler.

“I also hope this award inspires the next generation of Filipino economists to engage passionately in the pursuit of good economic discourse and policymaking.”

Punongbayan is also co-founder of UsapangEcon.com and co-host of the Usapang Econ podcast.

He earned his doctorate from UPSE in 2021, where he also graduated summa cum laude and valedictorian in 2009 and was awarded the José Encarnación Jr. Award for Excellence in Economics and the Gerardo P. Sicat Award for Best Undergraduate Thesis.

His professional experience includes the Securities and Exchange Commission, the World Bank Office in Manila, the Far Eastern University Public Policy Center, and the National Economic and Development Authority.

The other TOYM awardees are Kenneth Isaiah Abante (socio-civic and voluntary leadership), Ruel Amparo (agri-entrepreneurship), Khrista Francis Desesto (OFW empowerment), Mark Gersava (agri-entrepreneurship), John Mark Napao (sustainable energy), EJ Obiena (sports), Ma. Regaele Olarte (education), Tor Sagud (heritage promotion), and Stephen Michael Co (food technology innovation and entrepreneurship).

“These outstanding individuals have demonstrated unparalleled commitment, innovation, and leadership in their respective fields, embodying the spirit of positive change and progress. They have not only excelled in their fields but have also embraced innovation with passion, driving positive change in their communities and beyond,” JCI said. – Rappler.com

Rappler’s new mobile app, powered by the latest chat and community-building innovation, is a first of its kind in the Philippines and around the world. We now bring news closer to you while providing you with a space to interact with people who care about the same things as you without getting drowned in the noise.

Download the new Rappler Communities app on App Store or Google Play and join the chat rooms that matter to you. We hope to chat with you soon!

Play Video

BABAE NAMAN!

On Women’s Month, let’s celebrate the women who inspire and empower us through art. 

Draw your female heroes using Rappler’s template and let’s talk about how their stories influence you in the public art chat room on Rappler Communities on Friday, March 15. 

WHO RUN THE WORLD? GIRLS!

In celebration of National Women’s Month, let’s honor the remarkable women who stand as beacons of hope and inspiration in challenging times.

Draw your female hero and join the roundtable discussion in the public art chat room on Rappler Communities on March 15.

Budol besties! We’re having our first ever #CheckThisOut Community Chat with no other than Jax Reyes of Kaskasan Buddies. Tuturuan niya tayo how to get the most out of our credit cards especially when it comes to shopping!

Lazada vouchers will also be given away to lucky members!

Join the channel on the Rappler Communities app!

Over the past few years, Taylor Swift has gotten flak from environmental advocates because of her carbon footprint.

According to the Carbon Market Watch, her private jet produces carbon emissions about 1,800 times that of an average human.

What should celebrities do to lessen their impact on the environment? Join the discussion in the climate change chat room on Wednesday, March 13, at 6 pm.

A total of 15 couples recently became the first to receive Quezon City’s “right to care card,” marking the next step in the city’s efforts to become a safe space for its LGBTQ+ residents.

How did the QC local government work towards this moment? What can be done more to uphold gay rights in the Philippines?

Join this Rappler Communities chat on Tuesday, March 12 in the liveable cities chat room.

SHOW YOUR SCHOOL PRIDE! ✊

Get the latest news and updates on your favorite UAAP teams straight to your mobile!

Engage in conversations in the collegiate sports chat room on Rappler Communities.

NAIA: How embarrassing can it get? Let’s chat!

What has been done to improve NAIA? Will it one day be a source of pride for Filipinos and not a source of shame?

Join us for a Rappler+ exclusive chat session this Friday, March 8, at 1 pm with Rappler transportation and infrastructure reporter Lance Yu. We will dive deep into the recent issues (bed)bugging NAIA and what needs to be done.

Share your thoughts and get your questions answered!

TRAVEL MODE: ON ✈️

President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. flies to Australia for the second time in a week to join other Southeast Asian leaders for the ASEAN-Australia Special Summit in Melbourne from March 4 to 6.

Rappler senior multimedia reporter Bea Cupin is in Melbourne to report on the President’s latest trip. Learn more about Marcos’ foreign travels by joining the security and global affairs chat room of the Rappler Communities app.

Patuloy na lumalawak ang kapasidad ng teknolohiya na lumikha at magpakalat ng impormasyon. Sa harap nito, gaano pa rin kahalaga ang fact-checking?

Ibahagi ang iyong opinyon sa #FactsFirstPH chat room ng Rappler Communities app sa Biyernes, Marso 1, 6 pm.

It’s raining guns.

Sa isang investigative piece ng Rappler, nalaman na may 654 na baril ang limang miyembro ng pamilyang Duterte.

Maalala na noong May 2022, isinabatas ni dating pangulong Rodrigo Duterte ang pagpapahaba ng validity ng mga armas — batas na pinakinabangan nang husto ng kanyang pamilya.

Bakit napakaraming baril ng pamilya Duterte? Mga pro at anti-gun advocates, pag-usapan natin ‘yan. Sumali sa justice and human rights chat room. #RapplerCommunities

More about Rappler Communities

• Rappler launches Rappler Communities: Here’s what you need to know
• Dreaming big with you: Chat for change
• Rappler Communities: FAQs on community-building initiatives
• Rappler Communities: Tech FAQs
• Rappler Communities: Platform FAQs

– Rappler.com

Rappler’s new mobile app, powered by the latest chat and community-building innovation, is a first of its kind in the Philippines and around the world. We now bring news closer to you while providing you with a space to interact with people who care about the same things as you without getting drowned in the noise.

Download the new Rappler Communities app on App Store or Google Play and join the chat rooms that matter to you. We hope to chat with you soon!

NA-EDSA-PWERA NA NGA BA?

Hindi idineklarang holiday ni President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. ang Pebrero 25 ngayong taon. Ano-anong hakbang ang maaari nating gawin upang mapanatili ang kahalagahan ng EDSA People Power?

Makibahagi sa usapan sa #FactsFirstPH chat room sa #RapplerCommunities app: rplr.co/FFPHchat

Why is former president Rodrigo Duterte calling for an independent Mindanao?

Join the Rappler+ community chat session on Friday, February 16, at 1 pm.

If you’re a non-Rappler+ subscriber, now’s your opportunity to be part of this vibrant community! Subscribe for only P73 a week: rappler.com/offers/

Gusto mo bang maging cartoonist?

Ano nga ba ang proseso sa paggawa ng epektibong cartoon? Magtanong at makibahagi sa usapan sa #FactsFirstPH chat room sa Rappler Communities app: rplr.co/FFPHchat

For overseas Filipinos with romantic partners back home, what lengths did you have to go to in order to strengthen your relationship despite the distance?

Share your stories in the comments or through the overseas filipinos chat room on the Rappler Communities app: rplr.co/OFWChat

Must Read

By the youth, for the youth: Rappler event to highlight student actions for causes

More about Rappler Communities

• Rappler launches Rappler Communities: Here’s what you need to know
• Dreaming big with you: Chat for change
• Rappler Communities: FAQs on community-building initiatives
• Rappler Communities: Tech FAQs
• Rappler Communities: Platform FAQs

Hindi sa loob ng paaralan natatapos ang responsibilidad ng isang campus journalist. Paano nga ba higit na makapaglilingkod sa lipunan ang mga batang mamamahayag? 

Magtanong at makibahagi sa usapan sa factsfirstph chat room sa Rappler Communities app: rplr.co/FFPHchat

Join our pre-Valentine offering as we discuss how this political “love team” has been keeping it together this 2024, despite the Romeo and Juliet situation of their families. Is it love conquers all, or families first?

A selection of Rappler’s political journalists will be available to participate in our community chat. Secure your Rappler+ membership to participate in our private, members-only Rappler+ community chat.

It may feel daunting to start hiking for the first time. But having a community to guide you may make it less intimidating and more exciting.

On Wednesday, February 7, let’s talk about the things you should know before hiking your first mountain! 

Share your thoughts and questions in Rappler’s climate change chat room: rplr.co/ClimateChangeChat

The World Surf League heads to the birthplace of Philippine surfing for the first time!

Chat about pro surfing and other sporting events on Rappler Communities: rplr.co/SportsChat

[WATCH] LIVESTREAM: 2024 WSL Baler International Pro surfing competition

AI SA ESKUWELA?

Paano magagamit nang makabuluhan ang AI sa mga gawaing pang-paaralan? 

Magtanong at makibahagi sa usapan sa #FactsFirstPH chat room sa Rappler Communities app sa Biyernes, Pebrero 2, 6 pm: rplr.co/FFPHchat

Even after publicly stating that there will be no more extension for public utility vehicles to consolidate, the government granted one last extension. Join the live discussion about the modernization program’s new deadline, its benefits, as well as the reasons why jeepney drivers and operators oppose it.

Share your thoughts and questions in Rappler’s liveable cities chat room on Thursday, February 1, 3 pm: rplr.co/LiveableCitiesChat

Thousands of Filipinos leave and work overseas to be able to provide for their loved ones. How can they protect themselves from illegal recruitment?

Get expert insights in this special Communities chat on Thursday, February 1, at 10 am.

Join us at the overseas filipinos chat room: rplr.co/OFWChat

– Rappler.com

Rappler was one of the 10 groups selected by OpenAI to implement these experiments, from nearly 1,000 who responded to the company’s call for ideas. Submissions came from across 113 countries. 

In its blog post, OpenAI highlighted a finding made by the Rappler team which noted disparities in the performance of AI-powered transcription tools like OpenAI’s Whisper across languages. 

These disparities make it difficult to draw insights from non-native English speakers in the human-moderated discussions. Specifically, the Rappler team found some transcription errors made by Whisper significantly altered the meaning of a participant’s views in spoken Tagalog, Binisaya, and Hiligaynon.

Rappler’s prototype process and findings

In a post explaining the findings, Rappler hypothesized that a one-size-fits-all consultation process regarding how AI should be governed would be insufficient given the magnitude of AI’s potentially disruptive impact. 

Because of this, it proposed a multi-layered consultation process which involved developing aiDialogue, an AI-moderated chat room that gather insights on how AI should be governed. In the chatroom, Rappler prompted ChatGPT to act as Rai, a focus group discussion moderator.

Launched in September 2023 during the Social Good Summit, aiDialogue was used by the Rappler team to gather insights from a combination of human and AI-moderated focused group discussions which were conducted both online and on-ground. Over a dozen consultations were conducted from September to November 2023, with participants coming from all over the Philippines across various sectors. 

The experiment also involved transcribing the human-moderated focused group discussions using Whisper, OpenAI’s AI-powered transcription service.

In its findings, Rappler noted that participants found human-moderated consultations as more engaging, meaningful, and trustworthy. 

While the consultations were able to generate at least 95 initial policy ideas, LLMs also showed limitations in generating enforceable constitutional policy ideas. This meant there is a need to have human experts as part of the process to add nuance and detail towards crafting policies.

OpenAI learnings from the grants program

While groups were conducting their experiments, OpenAI provided support and guidance during the program’s proposal process. It also held a Demo Day in September for the various teams to present their concepts to each other. 

The company also said it aimed to facilitate collaboration among the applicants by encouraging structured documentation processes to let everyone see how they could integrate and work together with each other’s prototypes. In its blog post, shared the primary learnings it picked up from the 10 chosen grants.

Apart from Rappler, following teams were also selected for the purpose of setting up experiments:

• The Democratic Fine-Tuning team
• The Case Law team
• Inclusive.AI
• Ubuntu-AI
• Collective Dialogues
• Energize.AI
• Recursive Public
• Generative Social Choice
• Deliberation at Scale

The first learning OpenAI noted in its blog was that public opinion on a given topic can change frequently.

The Democratic Fine-Tuning team built a chatbot that presented scenarios of participants, creating “value cards” which participants could review. The Case Law team had workshops and represented their opinions as a set of considerations over a given series of scenarios. Meanwhile, Inclusive.AI allowed users to capture statements and how strongly people felt towards those statements by instituting voting tokens, allowing users to give more than one vote and therefore weigh a statement.

OpenAI added, “Many other teams presented statements accompanied by the proportion of participants in support.”

OpenAI said, “Many teams found that public opinion changed frequently, even day-to-day, which could have meaningful implications for how frequently input-collecting processes should take place.” 

“A collective process should be thorough enough to capture hard-to-change and perhaps more fundamental values, and simultaneously be sensitive enough (or recur frequently enough) to detect meaningful changes of views over time,” the company added.

Second, reaching relevant participants across digital and cultural divides might require additional investments in better outreach and better tooling. Aside from Rappler’s findings – in which AI may have mistranscribed the statement of non-native English speakers – finding participants across the digital divide and getting participants who were less optimistic about AI were also challenges. 

To that end, the Ubuntu-AI team chose to directly incentivize participation. They developed a platform that allowed African creatives to receive compensation for contributing to machine learning about their own designs and backgrounds.

Third, finding compromises can be difficult, especially if a small group has strong opinions on a particular issue. The processes of three teams – The Collective Dialogues, Energize.AI, and Recursive Public teams’ – were designed to find policy proposals that would be strongly supported across polarized groups. 

Additionally, there was also the possibility of creating tension when it came to representing the group decision through consensus versus representing diverse, various opinions. 

The Generative Social Choice team developed a method which would allow highlighting a few key positions. This would provide for a range of opinions to be shown, while also finding common ground. 

The Inclusive.AI team, meanwhile, looked at various voting mechanisms and how they were perceived, with their findings alluding to people seeing as more democratic and fair those mechanisms that allowed people to have an equal say and which showed how strongly people felt about their choices.

Lastly, OpenAI also noted how some participants felt nervous about the use of AI in the democratic process, and preferred for processes to be transparent regarding how and when AI is applied. In post-deliberation sessions, many teams found that participants became more hopeful about the public’s ability to help guide AI.

For the Deliberation at Scale and Recursive Public teams – which had collaborations with municipal government and roundtables with professionals and stakeholders – they found that while there was clear interest in AI’s potential role in improving democratic processes, people were also cautious about how much influence democratic institutions should grant to AI systems and their developers.

The Collective Dialogues team meanwhile found a combination of AI and non-AI decision steps – like curation by experts of policy clauses, or a final democratic vote on a policy informed by AI – was better perceived as being publicly trustworthy or legitimate.

The Collective Dialogues team also found a clause supported by 85% of their participants, which was that a chosen policy should be “expanded on and updated regularly as new issues arise, better understanding is developed, and AI’s capabilities evolve.”

Further, including people in participating towards a deliberation session on AI policy issues made people more likely to think the public was capable of helping to guide the behavior of AI in general.

Further steps

OpenAI says it plans to implement what’s been gained and learned from the process “to design systems that incorporate public inputs to steer powerful AI models while addressing the above challenges.” 

It has set up a team of researchers and engineers for that purpose, called the “Collective Alignment” team, which would work to incorporate the grant prototypes into steering the company’s AI models as well as implementing “a system for collecting and encoding public input on model behavior into our systems.” 

The full blog post, including summaries of the findings of the grantees, is available here.  – Rappler.com

These communities allow us to find like-minded individuals across various Rappler topics from business, personal finance, human rights, and world affairs, to movies, Kpop, collegiate sports, and consumer-facing technology. 

These allow you to participate in a positive community where you and other members can discuss all the hot topics of the day, as well as the issues that matter.

Who can join these communities?

Anyone is free to join, and be a healthy contributor in building up Rappler Communities – a community that is unentangled from manipulative algorithms, and protected from the toxicity found in social media platforms today. 

What makes these communities unique from other forums online?

What makes Communities unique is its vision of reimagining how online communities should be. Chats are closely moderated by the journalists themselves, and from time to time, we bring in Rappler’s Thought Leaders (which you can read about more below) to shed more light on their topics of expertise, be it the national economy, or how things are in the West Philippine Sea. 

More than that, another key pillar of Communities is its use of what is known as the Matrix protocol (check out our FAQ on the Matrix protocol, and other technologies used by our platform here) which allows for “decentralized” communications. 

How can I join a community?

First you need to sign up for an account, go to communities.rappler.com, type in your first name, last name, preferred email, password, and location up to the city level. You can also use your Facebook, Google, Apple, or X account.

An email will be sent to you to confirm.

After confirmation, you can now join any of the chat rooms based on your interests, by clicking the chat room, and then clicking join. 

How does Rappler moderate these communities?

We follow Rappler’s Community Guidelines, listed here, with Rappler journalists and its civic engagement team at the helm. These include guidelines on kindness and courtesy, hate speech and bullying, truthfulness in posts, copyright, and privacy. 

AI is also used to automatically moderate some content such as swear words. 

I want to report a person in a community chat. How do I do this?

Hover over a message. Click the vertical three dots. Click on “report message.” Click on the appropriate reason such as spam or pornography, or you can also choose to write a more detailed report. Click on report message, and our moderators will take care of the rest. 

Repeat or grave offenders may be subject to serious action such as a ban. 

What happens when a user is reported?

When a user is reported, human moderators will check to see if the content of the report is actionable and can choose to remove individual messages, or kick a user from a chat community for egregious actions. For more serious infractions, moderators can also institute a ban on a user account.

What is a Thought Leader?

Thought Leaders are experts in a given field, key opinion leaders, leaders of influential and credible organizations, or someone whose opinion piece, if published on Rappler, would be identified as a Thought Leader piece. Thought Leaders can be identified in the chat rooms by a mark beside their username. Thought Leaders were also given early access to the application.

Can I become a Thought Leader?

Thought Leaders are picked by Rappler’s editorial team based on credibility, track record, and engagement with us. If you wish to be given Thought Leader status on the app, you can email community@rappler.com. We’ll assess based on the standards used by the editorial team and let you know.

Will there be new communities in the future?

New communities can be made on the app, but are dependent on initial response to usage of currently existing communities and requests for specific communities to be made. For now, we have tried to make the existing communities inclusive of key topics.

Can we talk to Rappler journalists on the app?

Rappler journalists will be using the app as well, and will likely be talking to other chat users in their respective fields or communities they’re interested in.

You can read our other FAQs here:

Rappler Communities: Platform FAQs

Rappler Communities: Tech FAQs

 – Rappler.com

Matrix is an open protocol meant to allow for secure, decentralized communications. The protocol allows developers to build an ecosystem of applications that function and work with one another. We are using Matrix to build a community that has the ability to control its communications and converse with others securely and privately.

Rappler believes in the ethos of the Matrix manifesto, which wants users to be able to have secure conversations with others on a network that is more people-centric –  meaning people are able to choose who hosts their communication without limiting the reach of their message.

More information on the Matrix Manifesto and its beliefs are available here.

How are you using AI for Rappler Communities?

Artificial intelligence is used on the Rappler Communities app to help moderate messages and alert human moderators to improper use on the app. 

Is my data safe on the app?

The Rappler Communities app asks primarily for an email address to connect your account to for the purpose of identification for logins and enforcement of chat moderation. To protect and safeguard your privacy, we employ stringent standards in data management and security. Please refer to our privacy statement for more information on what data are collected, and how we protect them.

What can we expect in the future?

Future iterations of the Rappler Communities app will add further features to improve interoperability with other chat apps through the Matrix protocol. 

You can read our other FAQs here:

Rappler Communities: Platform FAQs

Rappler Communities: FAQs on community-building initiatives

– Rappler.com

Rappler Communities is an online safe space for all. It’s available on Android and iOS, and on communities.rappler.com on the web.

At the core of Rappler Communities is you. In secure and responsibly moderated chat rooms, we will strive to build a gentler, kinder town square where you can easily access Rappler’s best stories, and engage with a vibrant and empathetic community minus the toxicity of social media platforms today. 

How do we combat toxicity? Aside from both AI and human moderation, we have specifically engineered Rappler Communities to be free from social media algorithms that favor hateful, angry content that end up funneling us into radically opposite ends, and echo chambers that disallow empathy in discussions. 

You will be able to interact directly with Rappler journalists, some of whom will be moderating the many varied chat groups from politics and governance to business to the lighter side of things such as sports, entertainment, and gadgets and technology. In the coming weeks, Thought Leaders will also be joining the chat rooms.

We are excited, and we encourage you to try it out, and give our vision of a healthier digital existence a chance. 

Who is it for? 

It’s for those who tire of trolls, and online disinformation campaigns that continue to proliferate on status quo social media. It’s for those who believe that there can be an alternative space for expressing ourselves online – one untainted by intrusive data collection practices, aggressive online ad targeting, and inflammatory algorithms. 

It’s for those who believe that free speech isn’t absolute, but rather it should involve a sense of responsibility and welfare for all the other members in the community, and society at large. 

Does this need a subscription? 

No. Joining is completely free. 

All that Rappler Communities asks from every member is to help in building and nurturing the community – which, at the minimum, just means following a few simple house rules, such as no personal attacks and no swearing. 

Simply log in with your existing Rappler account or sign up by providing basic details like name, email, password, and location. This aids our development team in enhancing user experience and resolving any app-related issues. You can also log in via your Google, Apple, Facebook, or X accounts.

What makes it different from other news apps? 

Our app merges two things: our stories, and our communities. A tab for news shows you everything you’d see on our main website. 

The Communities tab on the app and the communities.rappler.com website let you immediately discuss these stories – or whatever hot topic that’s happening that day, say, from Blackpink finally renewing their contract with their management, La Salle winning the basketball championship, or maybe, tips on avoiding scams. 

This merging of the two represents our vision for building an environment conducive to respectful, diverse, and ultimately, action-inspiring dialogues.

The two cannot exist without the other. Trustworthy information and news cannot survive in the toxic environment of today’s social media platforms. And a positive, empathic community is not possible where malicious, manipulative content is allowed to thrive. 

Why do you need communities for the future of news? 

The current information ecosystem in which online communities find themselves is prone to manipulation and favors inflammatory content that can often drown truthful information and news. News dies in such an environment.

If you’ve found that things sometimes don’t make sense anymore on your feeds, that’s all thanks to the information dystopia. On our app, we don’t promise utopia, but we promise a real, kind community – the type where some manner of integrity is valued, and hence, it is one that makes sense.

You can read our other FAQs here:

Rappler Communities: Tech FAQs

Rappler Communities: FAQs on community-building initiatives

 – Rappler.com

On Thursday, December 21, GIJN included in its list Rappler’s Diplomatic Immunity and Impunity series, as well as an investigative piece on pro-China disinformation operations in the Philippines.

The Diplomatic Immunity and Impunity series is a data-driven, cross-border investigation uncovering how erring diplomats have been able to exploit their migrant domestic workers and have gotten away with it for decades, owing to a privilege called diplomatic immunity.

Because of this privilege, it is difficult for workers to seek legal remedies. And even when the diplomats were charged and courts ruled in favor of the workers, nongovernmental organizations have noted that enforcing judgments remained difficult.

With most of the exploited domestic workers uncovered as women from developing countries, Rappler further explored what happens after rescue. Years after escaping, justice was still elusive for the workers – especially for one who had over €80,000 in stolen and unpaid wages.

The four-part series was written by journalist Ana P. Santos, Rappler multimedia reporter Michelle Abad, and Rappler digital forensics specialist Pauline Macaraeg. 

Journalismfund Europe and the Pulitzer Center supported the reporting for the series.

Diplomatic immunity and impunity – a Rappler series

Macaraeg also wrote the other recognized piece, “How pro-China propaganda is seeded online in the Philippines.” The in-depth report explored how pro-China sentiments were spread online in the wake of Chinese Coast Guard aggression against Philippine ships in the West Philippine Sea.

The investigation stems from the August 5 incident of the Chinese Coast Guard blasting its water cannons at two Philippine ships in a resupply mission to the BRP Sierra Madre stationed at Ayungin Shoal. 

Nationalist comments may be expected from Filipinos following such an incident, but instead, there was rampant criticism of the Philippine Coast Guard’s condemnation of the harassment, and the championing of Beijing.

The investigation discovered that a pro-China community on Facebook has been spreading propaganda and disinformation to support China for years, and it was formed during the administration of former president Rodrigo Duterte.

How pro-China propaganda is seeded online in the Philippines

Other stories the GIJN recognized from Southeast Asia include pieces on the procurement and use of espionage tools in Indonesia, how illegal timber in Cambodia is used to sustain top fashion brands, and cyber attacks launched by the Burmese military junta against female pro-democracy activists, among others.

“The stories featured reveal the commitment and tenacity of journalists to continue exposing crime and wrongdoing, often thanks to the use of digital investigative tools,” the GIJN said. – Rappler.com

The app is our vision for the future of news. 

“The insidious manipulation of Big Tech – inciting fear, anger and hate for profit – has destroyed the public sphere and the crucial discussions needed for democracy,” said Rappler CEO Maria Ressa. “It’s time to build our shared reality and redefine civic engagement, to restore trust.”

Rappler Communities creates a digital town square centered on facts. It allows you to organize for your passions and concerns, built with technology free from coded bias that lets you chat with journalists, civil society groups, thought leaders, or simply just your neighbors.

“With the widespread toxicity and proliferation of disinformation online, many of us opt to instead tune out, missing crucial opportunities for meaningful engagement and action,” said Natashya Gutierrez, president of Rappler. “Journalism for us has always been about driving impact and positive change. This safe space allows us to do that, with the help of our communities and changemakers.” 

Why join Rappler Communities?

News can be depressing. It can make you feel helpless with the sheer magnitude of problems our country and the rest of the world face.

Through secure and responsibly moderated chat rooms, you can find people who care about the same things as you without getting drowned in noise and disinformation. 

You can join multiple chat groups aligned with your interests. Conversations will cover a range of interests and passions – from governance to business, to technology, and those that light up our lives such as travel, pets, or K-pop.

To access these features, log in with your existing Rappler account or sign up for free by providing basic details like name, email, password, and city. This will aid our development team in enhancing user experience and resolving any app-related issues. (MUST READ: Rappler Privacy Statement)

AI and human moderation

How do we provide these safe spaces?

We’re using Artificial Intelligence (AI) and human moderators to ensure that no hate speech and disinformation stays in the chat rooms. The human moderators are Rappler staff, including journalists and our civic engagement team.

Because Community chat rooms operate outside social media platforms, they are not influenced by algorithms that stir you toward inflammatory content. You decide which chat rooms you participate in.

It’s your voice, your choice.

Matrix protocol

The conversations will also be guided by three principles: open, attentive and inclusive dialogues; sharing of opinions based on facts; and a culture of respect and collaboration.

They’re the foundation of our community guidelines, which Rappler’s community team will strictly enforce.  

The app operates on Matrix, a groundbreaking open protocol for decentralized, secure real-time communications, founded on these key principles: 

• People should have complete control over their own communication
• Freedom from centralized communication silos and the ability to pick who hosts their communication
• The fundamental right to secure and private conversations
• Universal access to free, open, and global communication networks

Build – and chat – for change

Designed by Filipino journalists and tech experts, Rappler Communities drives a solution to the information dystopia created by social media companies. Our goal is to create an environment conducive to respectful, diverse, and, ultimately, action-inspiring dialogues. 

The launch of Rappler Communities is the second milestone in Rappler’s goal to build a news platform that springs from the pivotal role of communities in shaping the future of independent journalism.

In 2020, Rappler introduced the Lighthouse platform, which reimagined Rappler from the ground up based on its three pillars – journalism, community, and technology. Two years later, Rappler invited select groups, our “Communities of Action” partners, to engage directly with our audience through specialized partner microsites. 

Rappler Communities builds on this vision. Join us. Be part of Rappler Communities. – Rappler.com

Swedish group Qurium, a nonprofit that assists media groups worldwide through digital forensics of cyber attacks, aided Rappler in analyzing the attacks, identifying the severity, as well as the services that enabled them.

The first flood started at 10:51 am, October 30, lasting one minute, at a rate of 20,000 requests per second, a volume that would take down most websites without necessary protections. After the first volley, six more attacks were launched within the hour, peaking at 250,000 requests per second within a two-minute window, resulting in 26 million requests to the site.

Rappler experienced a series of DDoS attacks as well, along with other Philippine news sites, in the months leading up to the 2022 national elections, wherein some instances saw an attack volume of millions of requests per second. 

More than the attack intensity, Qurium’s report highlighted a more important component of the October 2023 attack on Rappler: proxy service providers are still being utilized by DDoS attackers to carry out their objectives.

The latest attack happened despite Qurium saying that they have long been in touch with the involved companies to inform them how their services were being misused, with the hope of seeing effective action from the companies that would mitigate future proxy provider-aided attacks in the future.

In the Rappler attack, two of these service providers were identified: US-based Rayobyte and Russia-based Fineproxy.

What are proxy providers? Similar to VPNs (virtual private networks), these services mask an internet user’s IP address, a general identifier for a user on the world wide web. Commonly, it is used to make one’s connection appear as if it’s originating from another part of the globe, to access geo-restricted content such as those provided by streaming services.

But as Qurium has seen, proxy IPs can also be weaponized and used in a more sinister way: DDoS attacks. In such an attack, thousands of these proxies, each pretending to come from a real human user, are utilized to flood a website with traffic to bring it down. For news sites, it can be mere harassment or it can be a form of censorship.

In Qurium’s findings, at least 10% of the proxy IPs involved in the October 2023 attack on Rappler can be traced to the aforementioned service providers, Rayobyte and Fineproxy. In their analysis of the fake traffic flooding Rappler, they found at least five data centers that were connected to FineProxy, and four others connected to Rayobyte.

While the two companies are not the perpetrator or perpetrators of the attack – which remain unidentified – the attackers were able to use their systems and services.

Qurium, in the past, identified links to the Philippine military enabling the DDoS attacks on Altermidya, Bulatlat, and Karapatan, and uncovered the individual conducting attacks on Rappler. 

Not the first time

While a single incident may be attributed to a momentary lapse in monitoring, several incidents may point to institutional faults in the company, the lack of will, concern, or ethics to prevent such harmful use of their services.

Qurium reported that they have informed the two companies “several times” about the DDoS operations co-opting, and weaponizing their systems but the non-profit said, “Despite our reports, none of the providers have managed to stop the use of their proxy service to conduct denial of service attacks.”

The non-profit has, in “past years” tracked “dozens of denial of service attacks sourced from Rayobyte infrastructure.” In the case of FineProxy, they began seeing attacks launched from the service’s infrastructure in 2018.  

Aside from the Rappler attack, the most recent one involving the use of Rayobyte infrastructure includes one on Somali journalists in August 2023.

Earlier incidents involving the same company include Nacionale (Kosovo), Kloop (Kyrgyzstan), People’s Gazette (Nigeria), Bulatlat (Philippines), and Turkmen News (Turkmenistan).

FineProxy was first identified in an attack on two media outlets in Azerbaijan, gununsesi.info and azadliq.info, in 2018. Another Azerbaijan news site, timetv.live, was attacked in 2020, again using FineProxy services.

Qurium asking for accountability 

One of Qurium’s top goals is to make a dent against DDoS attackers by putting the spotlight on these very visible proxy service providers whose infrastructure is being used for cyberattacks. 

Qurium’s technical director, Tord Lundstrom, said that proxy service providers have the ability to see the traffic going in and out of their infrastructure, and as such, the ability, and responsibility to spot patterns of abuse, such as in the case of a DDoS attack. 

But despite such an ability, Lundstrom said the DDoS attackers have been able to keep using the services, meaning there is either negligence or inadequate monitoring, or the service providers are turning a blind eye. Whatever the reason is, what matters is that the attacks have continued to use their infrastructure, and the companies in question need to put a stop to these, the director said.

Qurium and the companies have been engaged in email correspondence in the past, stemming from other incidents, with the former informing them of the attacks coming from IP addresses traced to their infrastructure.

But as evidenced by the latest attack on Rappler, the providers have not managed to stop DDoS attackers from using their services. 

In a recent email between Qurium and FineProxy seen by Rappler, the proxy provider did not acknowledge that the traffic traced to their infrastructure was used in a DDoS attack, indicating it could instead be traffic coming from web scraping activities. FineProxy sent Qurium a list of queries, attempting to question Qurium’s findings.

Qurium countered FineProxy’s web scraping defense, saying the number of requests made to the Rappler site are unreasonable. 

After reaching out to FineProxy, its CEO Ilya Trusov sent Rappler the same set of queries he sent to Qurium, once again questioning the findings.

Rayobyte’s CEO Neil Emeigh, a company that markets itself as an “ethical” proxy provider, told Qurium that like other online platforms such as cloud services AWS, Google Cloud, or Azure, “we can’t naively assume that [zero] abuse is possible when offering an infrastructure product, which is why we have the tight procedures and compliance steps in place to prevent, mitigate, and address any abusive users.”

Rayobyte also said it implemented measures such as blacklisting Rappler.com from their data centers to prevent attacks that use their infrastructure, and has removed the user that implemented the DDoS attacks. 

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Lundstrom expressed skepticism over such a solution, saying that a potential DDoS attacker can merely continue to attempt to run their operations under a different user name on the same platform. Blacklisting only prevents attacks on a specific website, and doesn’t guarantee the stoppage of the proxy provider-assisted DDoS attacks on other websites. 

Both Rayobyte and FineProxy have also asked Qurium – which is also a hosting provider with DDoS protections – to provide a list of organizations that they host, so they can ensure that attackers cannot target these again.

Lundstrom dismissed the offer, and implied that it’s merely a ploy so they’ll have less forensics data to work with. “If Qurium’s clients are no longer victims, there will be no more forensics reports revealing their malicious practices,” the director said. 

Trusov also offered to reveal the name of their customer that was responsible for the DDoS attacks, on condition that Qurium removes all articles about FineProxy from Qurium’s website. This, Lundstrom said, indicates that FineProxy has knowledge of the entity using their services for DDoS attacks. 

Qurium is adamant about shedding light on these proxy providers as until they take effective measures in stamping out DDoS-as-a-service attackers co-opting their infrastructure, the attacks are likely to continue.

Rappler has reached out to Rayobyte. Rayobyte has acknowledged our inquiries, and this story will be updated once they send their responses. – Rappler.com