Recently, Facebook (now Meta) and Twitter have removed accounts violating their policies in their respective platforms but the action of the social media platforms caused a conflict between specific political parties in the Philippines.
Facebook takedown
Following the removal of the accounts, suspended attorney Larry Gadon falsely accused Facebook of working with the Office of the Vice President (OVP) behind the suspension of BongBong Marcos supporter accounts after allegedly receiving a tip from a Facebook insider.
“I have (it) confirmed that the camp of a presidential aspirant has met with officials of the social media platform Facebook Philippines. to remove or suspend the FB accounts of BBM supporters with (a) big following,” Gadon claimed.
“Ito ang nakakatakot dahil lahat ng mga Facebook (accounts) na sumusuporta sa UniTeam ni Bongbong Marcos at Inday Sara ay posibleng ma-suspend o mabaklas nang tuluyan dahil sa pag-uudyok ng kampo ni Leni gamit ang kathang-isip na akusasyon,” he added.
(Translation: This is scary because Facebook accounts supporting the UniTeam of BongBong Marcos and Inday Sara might be completely suspended because of the political motivation of Leni’s camp.
However, Gadon failed to show evidence to support his claims on the politically-motivated move of the social media platforms and Vice President Robredo.
In defense, Vice President Leni Robredo’s Spokesperson Barry Gutierrez denied the allegations of Gadon.
Meta also refuted the allegations of working with the OVP and explained that the suspension of accounts is not political speech censorship but a move against users violating the community standards.
“No one from Meta recently met with the Vice President or her team or made any agreement to remove political content from our platform. We do not arbitrarily censor peaceful political speech on Facebook, and we will only remove content if they violate our Community Standards,” Meta explained in a statement on Jan. 27.
One of Facebook’s guidelines prohibits inauthentic behavior which may lead to misleading its platform users. “Engage in or claim to engage in inauthentic behavior, which is defined as the use of Facebook or Instagram assets (accounts, Pages, Groups, or Events), to mislead people or Facebook,” read Facebook’s policy.
“We have a global process for government requests to remove or restrict content. That process is the same in the Philippines as [in] every other country around the world. We share details of our compliance with these requests in our twice-yearly Transparency Report,” Meta also said.
Twitter suspends accounts
The camp of Marcos also accused Twitter of taking down 300 pro-Marcos accounts but the social media platform made it clear in the direct investigation of Rappler that they have removed the accounts due to their platform manipulation and violations.
The accusation against the social media platforms led to the clarification about political speech censorship and compliance with community guidelines.
In Twitter’s policy about platform manipulation and spam policy, it is clearly stated there that Twitter prohibits inauthentic behaviors and the operation of fake accounts.
Facebook and Twitter have suspended accounts spreading political hate speech and
spreading misinformation and disinformation in compliance with their community guidelines.
Know more about Twitter policies and Facebook policies.
By Jerome Toledo
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