COMELEC TO REGULATE SOCIAL-MEDIA SPENDING

THE Commission on Elections (Comelec) said it is targeting to come up with regulations for the social-media spending of candidates before the end of the month.

“We may come out with the guidelines before the start of the campaign period in February,” Comelec Spokesman James B. Jimenez told reporters in an ambush interview.

Jimenez said the new guidelines aims to monitor and regulate the expenses of candidates for paid or promoted social-media ads.

“We will make sure that whatever draft regulation that we have would respect the individual’s right for free expression. Social media will remain a free market of ideas,” he said.

“But [the move is] within the context of keeping the elections orderly, such as reporting of expenses and reporting of costs,” he added. Jimenez said the Comelec is coordinating with socialmedia firms like Google and Facebook , as well as election watchdog like Legal Network for Truthful Elections (Lente) to formulate the guidelines.

The election official said they opted to create the guidelines, amid the increasing influence of social media, in determining the results of the elections, particularly during the 2016 elections.

Election experts attributed President Duterte’s “overwhelming” victory in the 2016 presidential elections to his campaign on social media.

For that period, only a few candidates declared their social-media spending in their Statement of Contributions and Expenditures (SOCE).

“In 2016, we saw how effective social media was. We also saw how potentially destructive reasoned conversation can be on social media,” Jimenez said.

“The problem is there are some groups which exert disproportionate impact using the tools of social media. That is what we are trying to mitigate,” he added.