Duterte lashes out at Facebook after it takes down fake accounts

President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines is one of a number of populists around the world who rose to power in part by harnessing Facebook to get his unfiltered messages to millions. During Duterte’s 2016 campaign, his allies flooded the social media platform with misinformation about his opponents and laudatory stories about him.

Four years later, after allegations that Facebook aided disruptive disinformation campaigns in many countries, the Silicon Valley giant has put up increasing checks on what politicians and their allies can say online. And Duterte is not pleased.

In his weekly public address Monday, Duterte lashed out at Facebook for taking down fake accounts that supported his policies, making vague threats to shut the platform down in the Philippines.

“I allow you to operate here,” Duterte said. “You cannot bar or prevent me from espousing the objectives of government. Is there life after Facebook? I don’t know. But we need to talk.”

It was the latest reminder that the populists Facebook has empowered can turn quickly on the platform. The American social network has come under increasing pressure to grapple with the influence it gives to sowers of disinformation, be they Russian agents seeking to influence U.S. elections or military forces stirring ethnic hatred.

Yet even as it seeks to police those in power, better relations with leaders like Duterte are — in the short run, at least — better for Facebook’s bottom line.

The company said last week that it had taken down two networks, one based in China and one in the Philippines, that used fake accounts to post information about a variety of subjects, including Philippine politics. It said both networks had misled users about their identities.

The Philippine network had ties to the military and the police, the company said. It showed examples of memes the network had posted that criticized communist insurgents in the Philippines, as well as progressive activist groups.

This is not the social network’s first tangle with a strongman. In recent years, Facebook has found itself in a series of standoffs with populist and authoritarian leaders. The quarrels have centered around questions that now bedevil the company before the November presidential election in the United States: Who should decide what counts as misinformation, and when should it be taken down?

It is a thorny issue that the company has been hesitant to address head-on. Although it is assembling a board to oversee content moderation, Facebook has outsourced much of the day-to-day oversight. In Southeast Asia, harsh political realities have pushed its limits and occasionally forced its hand.

In Thailand in 2017, it faced the threat of a ban over content that the government said violated lèse-majesté laws. In Myanmar, where posts helped to encourage ethnic violence, Facebook blocked the country’s most powerful military official.

Duterte’s complaints are akin to ones made in recent years by President Donald Trump, who has accused social media platforms of anti-conservative bias and whose agencies are now pursuing an antitrust case against Facebook. Despite Trump’s claims, data tools regularly show that the most-read political content on Facebook in the United States comes from right-wing voices.

While many of the tough-talking Duterte’s threats come to nothing, Trump may have provided him with a precedent of sorts for dealing with Facebook.

Trump’s push to ban Chinese apps TikTok and WeChat from the United States could embolden other leaders to craft internet blocks of their own, when it is politically expedient to do so. As it plays a major role in the polarized politics of countries around the world, Facebook may well see more threats like Duterte’s.

In his address Monday, Duterte accused Facebook of opposing his policies and supporting the Philippine left. He said the company had “opened a Pandora’s box” and that his government might respond with tougher regulations.

“We allow you to operate here hoping that you could help us also,” he said. “Now, if the government cannot espouse or advocate something which is for the good of the people, then what is your purpose here in my country?”

Facebook executives in the Philippines declined to comment. In its statement last week, the company said it had shut down the networks because of their “coordinated inauthentic behavior,” not the content of the posts.

Duterte’s threats against Facebook were a striking turnaround for a president who has reaped considerable benefit from the platform. Before he won the 2016 election, running as a belligerent populist, fake accounts on Facebook spread positive stories about him and inflammatory attacks on his opponents, many of them untrue.

Since he took office, misinformation on Facebook — some of it shared openly by his aides — has been used to slander his critics and promote Duterte’s policies, including his bloody war on drugs. In March of last year, Facebook suspended 200 accounts linked to Nic Gabunada, social media manager of Duterte’s 2016 campaign, also for “coordinated inauthentic activity.”

In its statement last week, Facebook said the Philippine network appeared to have escalated its activity in 2019 and 2020. It posted in Filipino and English about Philippine news, including domestic politics, anti-terrorism legislation, and the military’s activities against terrorism, the company said.

The China-based network posted in Chinese, Filipino and English, focusing most of its activity in Southeast Asia, the company said. It posted about Philippine politics, including material supportive of Duterte and his daughter, who is said to be weighing a presidential run in 2022. But it also posted on global topics, including China’s activity in the South China Sea, where it has territorial disputes with the Philippines.

The Chinese network also posted content aimed at influencing the U.S. presidential election, though Facebook said the network devoted little focus to that effort and had gained “almost no following” in the United States.

Duterte and his officials did not appear to dispute that the military was involved in the Philippine-based network. He denounced Facebook for taking down the posts backing the military’s campaign against the country’s long-running communist insurgency.

“You know, Facebook, the insurgency is about overturning the government,” Duterte said. “What would be the point of allowing you to continue if you cannot help us? We are not advocating mass destruction; we are not advocating a mass massacre. It’s a fight of ideas.”

On Tuesday, the military issued a statement saying that Facebook “could be the medium that will help consolidate people’s support to their armed forces as their true protectors and defenders of the state against its enemies.”

A spokesman for Duterte, Harry Roque, said the government considered Facebook’s move “a form of censorship,” adding, “We are not conceding these are fake accounts.”