Ever heard of this guy, Amir Assadollahi, and his opinions about the political situation in the Philippines? You might have also read about him being referred to as a “Canadian political scientist” by various blogs. In fact, Assadollahi himself used that title to refer to himself after writing blogs about the Philippines.
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In fact, his most recent post on Monday, June 5, used that title, “A Canadian Political Scientist/Commentator.”
However, Facebook user Herb Fondevilla expressed his suspicions about Assadollahi and just what made him qualified to be a political scientist.
“o, I found this guy posing as a “Canadian political scientist” who is making rounds in Philippine news as a staunch supporter of the president. With a bit of Googling, I found out that he has never written an academic article (or any article published in an actual news site that is not Facebook), has possibly only one profile picture known to man, and only ever writes about the current political climate in the Philippines,” Fondevilla wrote.
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He also noted how Assadollahi’s LinkedIn account showed his “day job” is being an English conversation teacher in Japan and how it doesn’t make sense that he listed to many degrees – engineering, political science, sociology, and psychology, among others.
“His supposed day job? English conversation teacher at GABA in Japan. He also posts no current academic affiliation, BUT has degrees in electronic engineering, political science, sociology, psychology, etc. Yapi, maybe he works at your office? Benjamin, ever met him at a conference?” he said, even tagging a friend.
Fondevilla then called on for everyone to not be easily accepting of the news and the people professing themselves to be experts and to do some digging into the background, especially the credentials, of such people before believing them.
“Let us strive to be more critical of these supposed “news” and “experts”, a bit of background checking could be useful. Heck, anyone can call themselves a political scientist, but do they actually have the credentials to back them up? Moreover, do they even really exist?!?” he concluded his post on Assadollahi.
Meme Buster has also written about Assadollahi before when he was called out by another netizen, Miyako Izabel, for assuming wrongly that Senator Leila De Lima can be impeached. Izabel also asked Assadollahi to “stop dumbing down Filipinos.”
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