AFP asks Facebook: Put back 'advocacy' accounts. Inquirer Newsletter September 25, 2020

No images? Click here   ALL MASKED BY THE MANGER   Church worker Danny Cudal fits life-size statues of the Virgin Mary, Saint Joseph, and the Three Kings with face shields and masks that match the colors of their clothes on a Nativity scene near the Sacred Heart of Jesus Parish church in Cainta, Rizal, on Thursday. Cudal says the image of the newborn Jesus will be added to the crèche on Dec. 24.  —LYN RILLON     News Pogo earnings drop due to pandemic The pandemic has caused a big dip in state revenue from Philippine offshore gaming operators (Pogos), with one official saying the collection of regulatory fees that once amounted to around P600 million a month has dropped by half.  Pogo industry earnings have fallen by 80 percent as only over half of the gaming companies were allowed to resume operations and at only 30 percent of their capacity. —STORY BY DAXIM L. LUCAS Read more: http://bit.ly/inquirer-plus   Regions Hungry kin sent him on 850-km bike trip When Peter Roncales reached a quarantine checkpoint at the border of Oras, Eastern Samar, on the night of Sept. 21, he got off his bike exhausted, hungry and disoriented. Desperation drove the 19-year-old to go on a perilous, 850-kilometer journey from Laguna province so he could seek help for his starving family. After an accident and a flat tire, he arrived at his destination 10 days later. —STORY BY JOEY GABIETA AND CYRAIN CABUENAS Read more: http://bit.ly/inquirer-plus   News DENR made bay worse, SC told A party list group on Thursday asked the Supreme Court to cite the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) in contempt for causing further damage to Manila Bay instead of rehabilitating it. In a petition to intervene, Akbayan said the artificial beach created on a stretch of the bay’s shore was a mere window-dressing project that would also prove harmful to people and the environment. —STORY BY DONA Z. PAZZIBUGAN Read more: http://bit.ly/inquirer-plus   Newsletter / Join us Has this been forwarded by a friend? Subscribe now to the Philippine Daily Inquirer Newsletter and get your latest news and important updates on COVID-19 and the enhanced community quarantine. Subscribe   Get here     Banner story AFP asks Facebook: Put back 'advocacy' accounts By Nestor Corrales The Armed Forces of the Philippines wants Facebook (FB) to restore the accounts of private promilitary “advocacy” groups that were taken down by the social media giant for violating its standards, the military spokesperson, Maj. Gen. Edgard Arevalo, said on Thursday. Arevalo said Gen. Gilbert Gapay, the AFP chief of staff, asked Facebook head of public policy in the Philippines Clare Amador in a meeting on Wednesday whether they could restore specifically the Hands Off Our Children (HOOC) page. He did not identify the other pages, saying only that they were “of similar advocacies like preventing child exploitation and trafficking of minors, and combating terrorism.” Arevalo said Gapay urged Amador and her team “to look into the process they observe in unilaterally removing accounts and for them to give due regard to the cause the account owner espouse to remove doubts of FB being partisan.” Facebook on Tuesday announced that it had taken down more than 100 fake accounts and pages linked to the Philippine military and police that targeted activists and dissidents, and over 150 others based in China that supported President Duterte and the possible presidential bid by his daughter, Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte. Facebook said these accounts, whose true owners were not fully disclosed, had engaged in “coordinated inauthentic behavior,” which violated its community standards.That is broadly defined as using fake accounts to, among other purposes, “artificially boost the popularity of content.” ‘Demonizing leftists’ The promilitary accounts appear to have been part of a systematic propaganda against “communism, youth activists and opposition, the Communist Party of the Philippines and its military wing, the New People’s Army, and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines,” Facebook said. Their operation intensified between 2019 and 2020, coinciding with the debate on, among other things, the then pending antiterrorism law, increased Chinese aggression in the West Philippine Sea and the closure of the ABS-CBN network, it said. The HOOC page was found to have been administered by Army Capt. Alexandre Cabales, chief of the Army Social Media Center. The Digital Forensic Research Lab (DFRLab) of the US-based Atlantic Council found that Cabales was also the operator of a network of fake accounts that had been “demonizing leftists and youth organizations” and “Red-tagging the President’s critics.” Army defends captain Speaking to the Inquirer by phone, Philippine Army spokesperson Col. Ramon Zagala decried the DFRLab’s “sweeping” statement against Cabales and asked for its basis in making accusations against the officer. “We will not tolerate any wrongdoing or inaccurate information and we are confident that Captain Cabales is not doing that. That is why we’re alarmed. If they have evidence, I think they should present or Facebook should tell us,” he said. Zagala said Cabales told him he had not posted “anything inaccurate” and that HOOC was a group of “parents looking for their children who were recruited by the New People’s Army.” “This is a legitimate advocacy,” he said, adding that it was the parents who asked Cabales to be the page administrator. Zabala said the HOOC was not an official page of the AFP but the group’s advocacy “is okay for us.” “We are making an inquiry if there’s any wrongdoing,” Zagala said. “In the past we have punished people who have done wrongdoings in the Army when it comes to social media, so this is something we take seriously.” ‘Admission’ of troll army Gabriela Rep. Arlene Brosas said Gapay’s request to restore the HOOC page was a “clear admission” of the AFP’s hand in maintaining a “troll army.” Bayan Muna Rep. Ferdinand Gaite said the “‘Duterte Troll Army,’ some of whom are literally soldiers of the Armed Forces” were used to “spread lies, disinformation, and life-threatening slanders and terrorist-tagging.” “General Gapay should also stop misrepresenting their sponsored pages and fake accounts as belonging to advocacy groups, because clearly, spreading malicious lies, deception, and life-threatening terrorist-tagging are not advocacies,” he said. Brosas backed calls for Congress to scrutinize the payrolls and intelligence expenses of the AFP and the Philippine National Police to determine how much funding was “wasted for so-called communications specialists who are in essence, trolls.” Presidential spokesperson Harry Roque defended government officials and employees who may have Facebook or other social media accounts, saying “even government officials do have freedom of expression.” “What is prohibited is if this is done in official mediums maintained by the Republic of the Philippines,” he said. Wary of FB ‘impunity’ Amid the current furor, a social media observer said Facebook must also be held accountable for any disinformation on its platform that threatens democracies. “While most criticism will be focused on those responsible for this coordinated disinformation campaign, we’re also concerned that Facebook will once again get away with impunity,” said Red Tani, communications and advocacy director of EngageMedia, a private media/technology Asia-Pacific organization focusing on digital rights. “[We] also need to demand more responsibility and proactivity from Facebook and other social media platforms, and when they fail, we need to demand accountability, too,” he said. Tani cited a 2018 report where Facebook admitted that its platform was used to incite the Rohingya genocide in Myanmar. But two years later, groups that incite violence against activists and try to silence critics of the government were allowed to use the platform until their attention was called by independent analysts like DFRLab and Oxford University. ‘Artificial’ Du30 popularity “Until Facebook and other corporate social media platforms take responsibility, we need to continue to demand transparency and accountability when they fail to act,” he added. The Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), one of the main targets of the promilitary Facebook accounts, said the takedowns showed that Mr. Duterte’s popularity was artificially created using the people’s money, which, it said also was used in “promoting fascism and blind Duterte idolatry.” “It is now becoming exposed that the so-called Duterte Diehard Supporters is a manufactured trend generated by a state-funded troll farm of hundreds of networked government-controlled Facebook and other social media accounts,” it said in a statement on Thursday. —WITH REPORTS FROM MELVIN GASCON, JULIE M. AURELIO, KRIXIA SUBINGSUBING AND JIGGER J. JERUSALEM   Read more: newsinfo.inquirer.net   Editorial Who is he protecting? Who is Ombudsman Samuel Martires ‍trying to protect? This is the question provoked by his recent announcement that he would no longer allow the lifestyle check of public officials as a means of establishing culpability in graft and plunder cases. Since he was appointed to his post by President Duterte in July 2018, Martires has stopped lifestyle checks, citing the "vague" provisions of Republic Act No. 6713, also known as the Code of Conduct and Ethical Standards for Public Officials and Employees, which requires such persons to "lead modest lives appropriate to their positions and income." Martires should be reminded of instances in recent political history when the SALN proved crucial in exposing the plunderers in our midst by showing gross mismatches between legitimate incomes and lifestyles of excess. Consider the Marcoses and the ill-gotten wealth that the Presidential Commission on Good Government is mandated to locate and retrieve. Consider the mind-blowing amounts that animated the Estrada presidency, and which eventually came to light. Even the PhilHealth officials caught in the maelstrom of billion-peso corruption have volunteered to undergo a lifestyle check to disprove allegations. But Martires is seemingly intent on defanging a law intended to pinpoint graft in governance and on providing a convenient shield for those who may have something to hide. Why? Who is he protecting? Read full story: opinion.inquirer.net   Copyright © 2020 PHILIPPINE DAILY INQUIRER, All rights reserved. Our mailing address is: P.O. Box 2353, Makati Central Post Office, 1263 Makati City, Philippines.   Share    Tweet    Share    Forward  Preferences  |  Unsubscribe