“If you can’t take bullying, stay off of social media.”
The former sexy pop star/dancer-turned-government official shared this piece of advice for those who don’t want to get cyberbullied in an interview with GMA News.
As the assistant secretary for communications, Uson, who has a following of over 5 million users on Facebook, is in charge of handling President Rodrigo Duterte’s social media communications.
She offered another piece of advice for Filipinos on social media: “Everytime na tayo ay susulat, social media man o mainstream media, isipin natin ‘yung buong bansa at ating mga kabataan. Maganda ‘yung constructive criticism. Hindi lang ‘yung maninira ka for the sake na maninira ka.”.
(Every time we write, on social media or mainstream media, we should think about the whole country and the youth. Constructive criticism is good. But not discrediting [the president] for the sake of discrediting”)
Uson has been criticized herself for promoting so-called fake news and propaganda on her widely-followed account.
On one occasion, Uson shared a photo of a nine-year-old rape victim, with a caption chastising the critics of Duterte over their failure to condemn the assault and support the government’s anti-crime policies. The crime in question turned out to have happened in Brazil, not the Philippines.
Before her swearing in as an assistant secretary, Uson shared on her page at least two links from Pinoytrending.altervista.org and Trending News Portal, sites known to circulate fake stories.
But she vehemently denies spreading fake news.
“Hindi naman po totoo ‘yan. Hindi po ako nagre-repost ng fake news… hindi fake news ang opinyon,” Uson said. (That’s not true. I don’t repost fake news. Opinion isn’t fake news)
She also explained that these blog sites contain links to mainstream media sites.
Uson also denies being fanatic for the president, calling her support for Duterte “patriotic.”
She said she takes her own advice on cyberbullying when she gets bashed online. “Hindi ko na po pinag-aksayahan ng oras ‘yan dahil napakadami ng problema ng bayan natin.” (I don’t waste my time on them because our country has too many problems for me to have time for that.)
