Facebook said Tuesday it shut down a network of several pages and accounts linked to President Rodrigo Duterte's supporters for spam violations and breach of authenticity policies.
The social networking site said it removed 95 pages and 39 accounts for operating as a “spam network” on social media.
Facebook did not specifically name the pages, but the examples they provided were pro-Duterte pages such as Duterte Media, Duterte sa Pagbabago BUKAS, DDS, Duterte Phenomenon and DU30 Trending News, among others.
The site said 4.8 million users followed at least one of the removed 95 pages. These pages violated Facebook’s policies by “encouraging people to visit low-quality websites that contain little substantive content and are full of disruptive ads.”
Facebook said the published content in the removed pages ranged from politics to entertainment, and all shared links to the same advertising click farms off Facebook.
Other pages with similar links but did not directly refer to the President included Hot Babes, News Media Trends, Bossing Vic, Pilipinas Daily News, Like and Win, Manang Imee and Karlo ang Probinsyano.
“We don’t want this kind of behavior on Facebook”•and we’re investing heavily in both people and technology to keep bad content off our services,” Facebook said.
“We’re monitoring for a range of abuses on Facebook, including spam behavior, and will remove any account or page that breaks our rules.”
Meanwhile, the Palace said the shutdown of the pages did not necessarily reflect on the kind of supporters the administration had.
“Not necessarily,” Presidential Spokesman Salvador Panelo told reporters on Tuesday. “Facebook must have its rules and regulations. If they are implementing that, then that’s their own rule.
“Now, if the concern is, there will be no more avenues, there are so many avenues. We have Twitter, Instagram and many others where the advocates can express themselves in support of this administration.”