NextGen Day

MANILA, Philippines — On Wednesday, a party-list senator requested Facebook to use “more prudence” in deactivating the accounts of people who are actively involved in the political campaign activities of candidates in the upcoming May 9 elections.

Anakalusugan Rep. Mike Defensor made the statement after lawyer Vic Rodriguez, a spokesman for presidential candidate Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr., had his Facebook account temporarily suspended, then reinstated, for allegedly violating community standards.

Rodriguez’s account had been “incorrectly labeled as an imposter account,” according to Meta, Facebook’s parent company.

According to Defensor, a foreign business such as Facebook could be accused of “meddling” in a sovereign election in favor of a candidate.

Facebook might also be accused of “suppressing free speech and imposing its own political views on others,” according to him.

He believes Marcos’ adversaries are to blame for his spokesperson’s account suspension.

“A deluge of fraudulent complaints were filed by groups working for Marcos Jr.’s opponents against Rodriguez’s Facebook account, which was suspended due to the arbitrariness of the social media platform’s content moderators,” he claimed.

He claims that Facebook’s admission that Rodriguez’s account was mistakenly reported reveals the social media platform’s moderators’ vulnerability to “undue influence by partisan political operations.”

“Given that Facebook’s moderators aren’t even employees of the social media behemoth, but rather work for outsourcing companies hired to do the job,” he said, “they could be vulnerable to political manipulation in one way or another.”

Rodriguez stated in a Viber chat on Tuesday that his Facebook account had been suspended because he was “for Bongbong Marcos.”

“My account was suspended by FB (Facebook)/Meta because I am a supporter of Bongbong Marcos. “This is blatant censorship and interference with a sovereign act,” he said.

Meanwhile, Paul Gutierrez, president of the National Press Club of the Philippines (NPC), called Facebook’s move a “curtailment” of the right to freedom of expression.

“We condemn FB/heinous Meta’s conduct of suspending BBM’s chief of staff and spokesperson’s Facebook account, where he posts/publishes official remarks for the consumption of the media and the general public,” Gutierrez added.

He described Gutierrez’ account suspension as “totally pointless censorship, a violation of our Bill of Rights, and a blatant intrusion into our domestic matters.”

Rodriguez’s Facebook account suspension, according to Gutierrez, is the latest in a series of “neo-fascist methods of large-scale suppression” deployed by the US-based firm to sway the upcoming May 9 elections.

According to Gutierrez, Facebook has been flagging and suspending a number of public platform accounts, including that of National Security Adviser Hermogenes Esperon and the Philippine News Agency, among others, since last week.

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