EDITORIAL: WHERE OUR TAXES GO

Facebook has often been described as a kind of “Wild Wild West.” It’s been likened to a frontier where anything goes, judging by the wide range of content it has, from personal posts to advertising, from news analyses to jokes and anecdotes, from humorous memes to vicious attacks complete with manipulated images. But for many, it is precisely the unpredictability and randomness of Facebook that make it so appealing. One never knows what will show up in one’s account, since items seem to be arranged in no particular order or logical sequence. Whatever, FB can be a source of endless entertainment or ire, humor or viciousness, real news or fake news.

So popular has the technology become that one could daresay FB is now the most popular source of information and entertainment in the world. Some countries like China have succeeded in barring applications like FB from their networks, but have nonetheless felt constrained to create their own versions of it, albeit under tight state control.

Is the day not too far away for a similar scenario unfolding in this country? Reacting to news Monday that FB had taken down accounts traced to the Philippines and China, many of them found to have links to the military and pro-duterte groups, President Duterte early this week threatened to—or implied that he would—shut down the social networking site if it didn’t toe the government’s line.

“Facebook, listen to me,” the President said in his latest televised address. “We allow you to operate here hoping that you could help us also. Now if government cannot espouse or advocate something which is for the good of the people, then what is your purpose in my country?”

Fifty-seven FB accounts, 31 pages, and 20 Instagram accounts were taken down, according to FB’S head of security policy Nathaniel Gleicher. “We are attributing this network to the Philippine military and Philippine police,” Gleicher added, saying that they had found “links behind this network that connected to both these organizations and individuals associated with these organizations.”

The FB official made it clear that the networks were not taken down because of their content, but because they violated the social media network’s policies against “coordinated inauthentic behavior.”

What does this mean? Coordinated inauthentic behavior, a term invented by FB itself, means “the use of multiple Facebook or Instagram assets, working in concert to engage in inauthentic behavior where the use of fake accounts is central to the operation.” So it is not the use per se of, say, content favorable to the government or supporting one political party over another that FB seeks to stop. Rather, it is the concerted effort to broadcast the same claims across multiple accounts, using multiple, often fake accounts and other means of misrepresentation.

By some counts, almost 74 million Filipinos (out of a 109-million population) are FB users. While for many the social network is simply a source of entertainment and information, millions of other Filipinos, especially overseas workers and their families, rely on FB to connect and keep in touch with their loved ones, a lifeline to home, hearth, and heartland.

Even more alarming is FB’S finding that many of the disallowed sites had links to the military and police. And, indeed, military officials and spokespersons were among the most vehement in denouncing the takedown by FB, claiming that some of these sites were in pursuit of the anti-insurgency campaign and that, by its actions, FB was allowing itself to be “used” by communists, insurgents, and “the opposition.”

It is bad enough that law enforcers should be devoting their time and energy to “red-tagging” and thus endangering the safety of citizens exercising their rights of free speech and of free assembly. But even worse is that the police and defense establishments are using taxpayer money and resources for these noxious practices. Despite Malacañang’s initial disavowal of any connection to the bogus FB operations, the President’s tirade against FB only confirmed the public suspicion that the administration is behind “troll farms” formed and managed by pro-duterte groups, and likely financed by government agencies.

“It’s as if Facebook said to Filipinos: This is where your taxes go,” said ACT Teachers party-list Rep. France Castro. “We are glad that there is now an official recognition from Facebook of what we have been saying all along—that behind the troll army is the administration and its martial rule.”