PNP asks Facebook for list of fake accounts

MANILA, Philippines — The Philippine National Police has asked Facebook for a list of fake accounts supposedly managed by the PNP, which the social media giant took down for alleged coordinated activities to mislead the public.

PNP spokesman Col. Ysmael Yu said yesterday the Anti-Cybercrime Group (ACG) and the Information Technology Management Service (ITMS) have coordinated with Facebook for the list of fake accounts so they could conduct their own probe.

“We are still waiting for feedback from them,” he said in a phone interview.

According to Yu, they want to find out who are behind the fake accounts.

Facebook disabled at least 57 accounts, 31 pages and 20 Instagram accounts supposedly run by the police and the military for reported coordinated inauthentic behavior.

Coordinated inauthentic behavior is defined as the use of multiple accounts, pages and groups to mislead people, an activity prohibited under Facebook’s guidelines.

Yu said police hands are tied on Facebook’s decision to purge accounts which the social media platform perceives as spreading lies.

“But we respect the decision of Facebook,” he said.

Meanwhile, parents belonging to the Hands-Off Our Children thanked Duterte for calling out Facebook for taking down the group’s FB account.

The parents stressed that their group has a legitimate advocacy, which is to prevent communist rebels from recruiting children to the insurgency.

Malacañang has given assurance that the government does not intend to shut down Facebook in the Philippines.