A YouTube post showing the fake presence of a United States warship in Mindanao is still up on the video sharing website eight months after it was uploaded, and even if it was already fact-checked by various news agencies.
The post is titled “PINAKA MALAKAS NA BARKONG PANDIGMA NG AMERICA NASA MINDANAO NA! VINES PHILIPPINE NEWS VIRAL.” (The strongest warship of America is already in Mindanao! Vines Philippine News Viral)
At 1:17 timestamp, Ella Vloggs identified the warship as USS Ronald Reagan, which it said arrived in the country in June 2023 for pre-positioning “in case war erupts in Taiwan,” should China attack the latter due to their territorial dispute.
As of 11:50 a.m. January 30, the post has raked in at least 1,354 views.
But there’s no truth to the YouTube video that the United States’ strongest warship had sailed in Mindanao. The US warship in the false video is the USS Gerard R. Ford, which was then having a port visit in Oslo, Norway in May 2023.
Gerald R. Ford is America’s newest, largest, and most advanced aircraft carrier, according to the U.S. Navy.
Upon checking the YouTube account, Ella Vloggs would put into each video this description: “video reaction parod[ies] is make for a person with Love and Fair to help How to Make reaction Video watching and Listening is advise… [sic].”
Other videos posted by Ella Vloggs would also include some search engine-optimized keywords pertaining to the Philippines and other countries allegedly readying or currently having a war such as “AMERICA BUMANAT NA CHINA SA PALAWAN (USA attacks China over Palawan)! PILIPINAS VINES VIRAL NEWS and CHINA VS AMERICA & PILIPINAS BUMANAT NA (America and Philippines attack China) ! PHILIPPINE VINES BREAKING NEWS VIRAL, among others. Many of the YouTube channel’s video posts have been headlined “24 Oras Express,” apparently impersonating GMA Network’s 24 Oras.
(Editor’s note: Palawan is the Philippine province under which Pag-asa Island (Thitu Island) in Kalayaan municipality belongs. Pag-asa is in the West Philippine Sea, which China claims is part of its territory.)
Online media outfit Rappler had fact-checked and rated the YouTube post of Ella Vloggs about the presence of the US warship in Mindanao as false.
For its part, the United States Pacific Fleet did not conduct a port call in any of Mindanao’s ports at the time Ella Vloggs claimed it did, a search of the fleet’s website showed.
But in November 2023, two U.S. Navy carriers – Carl Vinson and Ronald Reagan – joined the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force in a Multi-Large Deck Event in the Philippine Sea.
Various Philippine news outfits have come up with fact checks about Ella Vloggs.
Notably, as early as December 23, 2022, TV5 Philippines already fact-checked Youtube channel Ella Vloggs for using videos from South Korean Ministry of Defense that was used by some media outfits, including Arirang News and MBCNEWS.
Other news outfits like Rappler and Vera Files had proven that Ella Vloggs has been spreading misleading or fake contents, such as the YouTube channel’s claims that the country had purchased its first nuclear submarine, the United states donated combat ships and bomber planes to the Philippines, and the Philippines launched a Pinoy-made warship.
The false post on the presence of the US warship in Mindanao was not the first time that the 306,000-follower YouTube page has posted misinformative content about the Philippines itself and the country’s second largest island grouping.
A search of keyword ‘mindanao’ on the YouTube page’s search button yielded various results of similarly misinformative contents, including these posts: Japanese warship (229,511 views), US tanks (37,996 views), and Japan Australia USA warships (56,084 views).
China is claiming Taiwan as part of its territory and has threatened to take it by force if Taipei resists unification. The US government had vowed to defend Taiwan in case of a Chinese invasion.
Why this matters
YouTube relies on both human reviewers and machine learning to detect community violations. Usually, users may report content that appears to be in violation of these guidelines.
It has a strict set of community guidelines that determine whether a page or content should stay online. According to its How YouTube Works link, pages may be considered in violation of these guidelines should they partake in fake engagement, impersonation, external links, and spam, deceptive practices and scams.
YouTube’s ‘Misinformation Policies’ guidelines are much more strict when it comes to content that may be flagged as misinformation.
YouTube also prohibits the impersonation of news channels:
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How much is Ella Vloggs worth?
While YouTube channel’s media value in terms of cost is usually private information between platforms and account holders, the value of a YouTube account is calculable based on open-source data, such as the number of subscribers, total views, creation data, and the country where the channel is located.
Websites like www.views4u.com forecast social media values and rely on algorithms to calculate how much social media channels are worth. The calculation, while not 100% accurate, is based on publicly available information.
Screenshot from calculations produced by www.views4you.com
www.views4you.com data suggests that pages like Ella Vloggs may earn as much as $8,373 per month, based on viewership averages. According to this calculation, individual video sponsorships may reach upwards of $3,060. The calculation also factors in the longevity of the YouTube channel, as well as estimated sponsorship price for each video. (Yas D. Ocampo with reports from Ian Carl Espinosa / MindaNews)
(This alert was produced with support from an Internews initiative aiming to build the capacity of news organizations to understand and monitor disinformation and influence operations in the Philippines.)
