[ad_1]
MANILA: Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte said on Monday (September 28) that Facebook could not prevent him from promoting his government’s goals, and told the social media giant that they should speak out about their purpose in their country.
“Facebook, listen to me,” Duterte said in a late-night televised speech. “We allow him to operate here in the hope that he can help us. Now if the government cannot embrace or defend something that is for the good of the people, what is its purpose here in my country?”
His comments follow Facebook’s Sept. 22 move to dismantle a network of bogus accounts that originated in China and the Philippines, including some that criticized the Communist Party of the Philippines and its armed wing, the New People’s Army (NPA).
Facebook linked some of the fake accounts in the Philippines to the military and police, although they denied being the account holders.
READ: Philippine military to review troop accounts after Facebook purge
But the military later said it regretted Facebook’s decision to remove a page that belonged to a group of parents that raised awareness about the Communists’ recruiting machinery. The conflict between the government and the NPA has raged since 1968 and has killed tens of thousands.
The Armed Forces of the Philippines had asked if Facebook could restore the page called “Hands off our children,” its spokesman said last week, because its defense was something that the military “shares and promotes.”
“What would be the point of allowing them to continue if they cannot help us? We are not advocating mass destruction, we are not advocating massacre. It is a struggle of ideas,” Duterte said.
“If you are promoting the cause of the rebellion … if you cannot reconcile the idea of what its purpose is or was, then we have to talk.”
Facebook said the fake accounts were dismantled because they had engaged in “coordinated inauthentic behavior.”
Platforms like Facebook have become political battlegrounds and have helped strengthen Duterte’s base of support, having been instrumental in his election victory in 2016.
“Is there life after Facebook? I don’t know,” Duterte said.
