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Envoy calls for probe about ‘malicious post’ against him on Facebook

DUBAI: Ambassador Constancio R. Vingno, Jr. has requested the Department of Foreign Affairs to investigate what he described as a “malicious post” now being circulated on Facebook alleging that he has raped an Overseas Filipina Worker.

In a post on his Fascebook page, the ambassador, who leads the Philippine mission to the United Arab Emirates (UAE), said the malicious link could be traced to the account Free Ford Everest 2016, which posted the link some five hours ago at the time his post about the matter was being drafted

“Once you click the link trendingnow5.ga, no such video will be seen and the word ‘loading’ will just appear,” Vingno said in his post.

“Unfortunately, the link has been posted by other sites like “I am Pinoy,” “Skrillviral,” “Attack on Titan Season 2”, among others; and has been shared by irresponsible social media users. It has been shared 1.2 million times,” he added.
Vingno said he “views this as an obvious attempt to discredit (my) integrity and malign (my) reputation.”

“I have requested the Department to do its utmost best, using all its available resources, to close down the malicious sites immediately, investigate the matter, and prosecute those responsible. Nobody, especially a member of the Foreign Service Corps, must be subjected to similar attacks in the future,” the ambassador said.

Irene “Pags” Corpuz,” head of IT Security at an Abu Dhabi government entity, in her comment on the ambassador’s post, urged supporters to report the matter to FB as a malicious report for it to be taken down.

“We can all click the “Report” and select the “It’s a false story” option. See if you can get to their “how was your experience in reporting…” and select the “Sad face” which will lead you to an open field. There you can write “It’s a malicious post, unverified, and not true.” The more report FB Receives particularly for that post, the more they’ll consider it urgent. I think the posts are being taken down one by one now,” Corpuz said.

For his part, a certain Antonio Salazar Aguirre, who’s page said he works at the Philippine Embassy in Ottaw said the post might have been meant to get information about OFWs in the UAE for marketing purposes.

He explained in his comment on the ambassador’s post, “ Sir, I think there’s (someone) creating shocking headlines to lure internet users into clicking the links to websites that perpetually indicate “downloading” so that the user would wait while supposedly downloading when in fact, personal information is already being harvested from the user’s computer through the website.

“It then auto-shares so it is shared in millions just hours after launch. They would always use very malicious headlines like death of a popular celebrity or sex video scandal of a popular actor pero sometimes they would also use less famous personalities to target a specific audience whose personal computer data were “ordered” from them (mostly by advertisers).

“In this case, I suspect, merong intresado sa profile ng OFWs in UAE, i.e., interests ng OFWs online, their purchases, what they search, etc. Maraming pwedeng gamit sa data na ma-collect pero usually, para sa targeted marketing/advertising yan.”

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