AS Alex Eala’s stardom continues to rise, so does the flood of fake information surrounding her.
Unscrupulous online pages have preyed on her growing fanbase and a Philippine tennis audience still finding its footing and learning its ways around the sport.
From clickbait articles to fabricated quote cards, edited tweets falsely attributed to public figures, and even AI-generated images of the 20-year-old in situations that never happened, misinformation has followed Eala’s ascent.
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At the end of her campaign at the first-ever WTA125 Philippine Women’s Open campaign, Eala finally addressed the issue, recognizing the enormity of the problem but admitting her camp is powerless to do something about it.
“I don't have power over what other people post. I am aware that there have been a lot of fake news articles," Eala said after her quarterfinal loss to eventual champion Camila Osorio at the Rizal Memorial Tennis Center.
"It is concerning because I see sometimes they get a lot of likes and it's difficult to understand, to tell the difference when you see it online,” she added.
Eala's fake-news dilemma is no different from other celebrities; but hers has become progressively worse since she made the breakthrough run to the semifinals of the WTA 1000 Miami Open in March, perhaps because the Philippines has one of the biggest populations of internet users in the world.
Her father, Mike Eala, also acknowledged the challenge of misinformation in today’s digital landscape, noting it as an inevitable byproduct of her growing profile.
“It is true that there have been so many fake news on Alex. We choose to focus our energy on things that are positive and can help her get to her goals,” he told SPIN.ph last November.
The stories come in various forms, from heartwarming to the absurd, sweet to unbelievable. But it's all the same: fake, made-up stories.
Take a look at this Facebook post about Jordan Clarkson, the Fil-American NBA guard and a former Sixth Man of the Year awardee, supposedly smitten with Eala.
Or another post by the Basketball Hype page supposedly of NBA star Anthony Edwards inquiring about Eala - and Kevin Durant even chiming in.
There, too, are woven stories of, one, Eala talking about how hard his dad Mike supposedly once worked as a waiter (false); two, of Eala giving a waitress a generous tip while in Thailand; three, of Eala signing a $45 million endorsement deal with Wilson; four, of Eala getting invited to a charity tennis match by billionaire Jeff Bezos; and, five, of Eala's mom Rizza buying the tennis court where she learned the sports as a child.
It only gets worse.
Just last week, veteran broadcaster Mel Tiangco found the need to speak up at the end of her early-evening newscast to deny claims made by unscrupulous pages that she hurled some insulting words at Eala - false accusations that were likewise attributed to Rappler founder Maria Ressa months before.
Most of the fabricated stories woven by these pages weren't exactly harmful to Eala, meant more to draw clicks than damage her reputation. But these stories are still fake and continue to deceive netizens, sometimes even the most discerning ones.
A study made by thenerve.co reveal these pages earn anywhere from $109 (P6,400) a month for the small pages to as much as $40,157 (P2.4M) monthly for the big ones running around 20 ads in each of their pages.
'Block out the noise'
Eala now turns her focus to her next assignment to the WTA500 Mubadala in Abu Dhabi as she continues her campaign at the highest levels of tennis. But before leaving Manila, she issued a clear reminder to fans and readers alike to be more discerning online.
“I know a lot of people sometimes can get misinformed. I guess my take would be to tell them to just try to find reliable sources of news and just try to listen to the dependable outlets. That's all I can say,” she added.
For the Eala camp, the stance is firm: block out the noise.
What remains is a call for Filipinos to be more mindful of what they read and share.
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