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Social media giant Facebook is keen to “rebuild” a Filipino account that it had initially deleted due to its alleged ties to the military and its “inauthentic coordinated behavior.”
Armed Forces Chief Gilbert Gapay said Tuesday that Facebook made the offer but admitted that it cannot restore the original page for “Hands Off Our Children,” an organization made up of parents whose children were recruited into the New People’s Army. (NPA).
“But you know, as time goes by, the audience [of the page] decreases, that’s why we are asking [them] to restore it or to [do] reconstruction as soon as possible, ”said Gapay, who was dismayed by Facebook’s action and called it“ unfair ”during a virtual forum of the Association of Foreign Correspondents of the Philippines (Focap).
“They (Facebook) are unfair to us by removing those sites because there are many other sites that are really advocating hate, violence and terrorism that should have been removed in the first place, not these good sites that [we] they advocate on Facebook, ”Gapay said.
Facebook removed more than 100 pages in October as it stepped up its campaign against fake accounts and those who spread false information about local politics and critics of the current administration.
These pages were tracked for links to China, the Philippine National Police, and the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP).
Since then, the police and the military have repudiated the pages, although the military admitted that “Hands Off Our Children” had requested their help in managing their page.
Gapay said that the official Facebook pages of the Armed Forces and all its units remain active to receive updates on military activities.
‘Don’t be prejudiced’
Gapay also asked Facebook to review its fact-checkers, citing that it may be “misleading” as the organizations chosen for the job “may be biased against the government.
The military chief also said that the AFP is not dedicated to sharing false news and disinformation on social media.
“On the contrary, we are protecting our fellow men, voters against [fake news] uploading what is only true and objective information, ”said Gapay.
The military and Facebook have had three meetings so far to discuss issues and “hopefully we could gain common ground and continue as partners, as providers of truth and factual information for the general welfare of the public,” Gapay said.
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