Facebook has been under fire over the past years for its failure to combat disinformation, allowing abusive content to proliferate and user data to be misused. Rights groups in the Philippines have expressed concern over the company’s failure to address such issues, which have led to a kind of online discourse so divisive and full of vitriol.

Yet Facebook had already known about these problems, at least according to its internal research leaked last month. These documents, which precipitated a Congressional inquiry in the US, revealed that Facebook had a troublesome content moderation policy—one that allowed “VIP users” to sometimes skirt around Facebook’s community standards out of the company’s fear of backlash.

“Nawe-weaponize naman talaga ang social media for those ends, e,” said Philip Jamilla, public information officer of rights group Karapatan. “Kaya kailangan ng strong pushback from civil society organizations, from human rights groups, to hold Facebook to account.”

In fact, in a September 2020 report, Facebook showed examples of posts that labelled individuals and groups as members of the New People’s Army (NPA). In one instance, a post called Kabataan Party-list Rep. Sarah Elago a “virus” with the hashtag “#NoToCPPNPA.” In another post, legal mass organizations and Central Luzon universities, erroneously including UP Diliman, were branded as a “recruitment basin” for the NPA—an accusation that even the president repeated.

Widely regarded as a death warrant, various instances of red-tagging on the ground—through malicious flyers and banners—have already led to rights violations such as arrests, harassment, and even deaths. Under the Duterte administration, at least 33 red-tagged activists have been murdered, per Karapatan.

“Kapag pinangalanan ka nang CPP/NPA, o ni-red tag ka, target ka na ng estado for whatever na gusto nilang gawin. Pwede ka nang target for trumped-up charges, pwede ka nang target sa mismong pagpatay,” Jamilla noted. “Yan yung mga konkretong banta.”

Facebook disclosed that a string of malicious accounts it had taken down in September 2020 could be traced to China, the Philippine National Police, and the Armed Forces of the Philippines. Facebook deemed at least 155 accounts, 11 pages, and six Instagram accounts in breach of its policy against “foreign government interference.” Those accounts mostly spread content supportive of President Rodrigo Duterte and Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte.

For Karapatan, even more worrisome is that official and verified government accounts are being used to spread disinformation and content that vilify activists and legal mass organizations.

For instance, the Facebook page of the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict, which has 130,000 followers, constantly echoes statements from so-called former rebels that link people’s organizations to “communist-terrorist groups.” Likewise, the accounts and pages of the local police and army units are also being used to spread false information, further increasing the reach of similar content.

Last year, Karapatan reached out to the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) and Facebook Philippines to investigate online red-tagging. While the CHR has yet to act on the complaint, Facebook has nonetheless taken down a slew of accounts believed to be spreading such malicious content.

“Kitang kita naman na official channels yung ginagamit. So ibig sabihin, itong pinaparatangan nilang komunista o terorista, hindi na lang basta random na red-tagging,” Jamilla said. “Estado na mismo yung nagpapangalan, at  nagbabalandra ng mukha at ng pangalan mo.”

While Karapatan is still assessing whether online attacks lead to actual rights violations, such a possibility remains since online and on-the-ground red-tagging often seem coordinated, Jamilla added.

Yet the Philippine government’s weaponization of social media to attack dissenters is not to their credit alone. As the recently leaked Facebook documents have shown, it may be possible that the social media platform itself may have also played a significant role in fanning the flames of disinformation and malicious content. ●

This is the first of a three-part series on how Facebook amplifies malicious content that potentially heightens risk to Filipino rights defenders’ safety and civil liberties. Read part two of the report here.