Philippines can ban Facebook if the government orders telecommunications companies to do so, according to a technology expert.
Following President Rodrigo Duterte’s criticism on the social media giant for taking down Philippine military accounts and pages advocating his administration, Manila Bulletin Tech Editor Art Samaniego said that the government can ban the social media giant through ordering telcos to block it.
“Technically, puwede. Utusan ko lang si Globe, si PLDT Smart, at si DITO na i-block si Facebook at ma-block na ‘yan,” he said.
However, he said that it would not be a wise move especially as the Philipines is a democratic country.
“Pero hindi siya wise kasi it’s a form of censorship,” he added.
Duterte earlier hit Facebook over its decision to take down pages for irregular activities, most of which are government sites and connected to the administration.
Duterte slammed the move to remove government’s advocacy pages questioning the company’s real intentions.
“Itong Facebook naman, from what I learned in the past days, na pati yung advocacy ng gobyerno tinatanggal,” Duterte said on Monday.
The President defends the anti-insurgency pages created by the military.
“You know Facebook, insurgency is about overturning the government. What would be the point as it is before, in my eyes. What would be the point of allowing you to continue if you cannot help us?,” he added.
Duterte said he will ask for an explanation from the company on why they took down the anti-insurgency pages.
According to Nathaniel Gleicher, Facebook’s cybersecurity policy chief, the said accounts have been doing a coordinated inauthentic behavior (CIB), which violated the platform’s community standards.
In a report by Inquirer, the said accounts were traced to China’s Fujian province, with many of them countering news site Rappler, showing support for Duterte and Sara in the 2022 presidential election, the bid of the country on West Philippine Sea and Hong Kong.
The pages have also posted about showing support for US President Donald Trump and going against US presidential candidate Joe Biden.
The policy chief said the accounts from this province have been active since 2018, but they could not distinguish the clusters to specific people or groups. He added that the Philippine and China clusters also used deceptive methods, and that the CIB actors engage in “foreign or government interference, which is coordinated inauthentic behavior conducted on behalf of a foreign or government actor.”
“So we regularly see these networks using pages that don’t fully disclose who’s behind them. The patterns of engagements that they may have with these accounts aren’t just the fact that they’re fake, but it’s how they use the accounts to boost their contents,” Gleicher added.
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