By RONALYN V. OLEA
Bulatlat
MANILA — A tool blocking fake news sites won big time in a prestigious annual digital marketing and advertising competition.
Fakeblok – a Chrome plug-in that blocks articles from fake news sites on users’ Facebook newsfeed— bagged three awards at the at the tenth Boomerang Awards organized by the Internet & Mobile Marketing Association of the Philippines (IMMAP). The lone entry of National Union of Journalists of the Philippines and BBDO Guerrero got gold for effectiveness in utility, silver for advocacies and the “Blue Boomerang” as recognition for an online campaign that “does good for all.”
Launched in June this year, Fakeblok is part of the NUJP’s campaign against the spread of misinformation online.
Since its launch, Fakeblok flagged more than 2,000 stories – preventing more than 1.6 million people from reading fake news.
Netizens are encouraged to submit sites that they think are fake news, which will be examined by independent Filipino journalists. If verified, it will be added to the Fakeblok’s list of fake news sites.
“We cannot believe everything that we read. We need to constantly question. We need to reclaim the truth. We need to reclaim our newsfeeds,” the NUJP said in a previous statement.
NUJP Directors Virgilio Cuizon and Raymund Villanueva and the BBDO Guerrero Creative Chairman David Guerrero and his team received the awards last night, Oct. 13 at Ibiza Beach Club, BGC, Taguig.
A total of 263 entries were judged in this year’s competition. Fakeblok is one of the 90 that made it to the shortlist.
The Boomerang Committee is led by Leigh Reyes, President and Chief Creative Officer of MullenLowe Philippines, Jeff Saez, Chairman and President, NuWorks Interactive Labs, and Mike Constantino, Co-founder and Managing Director, Homonym. 
