Facebook explains takedown of posts by Ed Lingao, EJAP

Social networking site Facebook on Tuesday explained why some posts or pages of Philippine journalists and press groups were removed following complaints from users. 

Among those affected by Facebook's take down policy were the Economic Journalists Association of the Philippines (EJAP) and television news anchor Ed Lingao.

EJAP criticized Duterte's remarks over media killings while Lingao decried the incoming president's decision to allow the burial of the late Ferdinand Marcos at the Libingan ng mga Bayani. 

Facebook said Lingao's "post was incorrectly removed and has since been restored."

"We have clarified that one piece of content was mistakenly removed and has since been restored. When we have millions of reports to review each week, mistakes do happen. Once we're alerted to errors we quickly act to resolve them, and conduct regular audits and quality assessments to help prevent them from happening again," said Facebook.

But Facebook justified its action against EJAP's page, saying it violated the social network's authenticity policy. 

"The EJAP profile was correctly removed as it violated our authenticity policy. Personal profiles are for non-commercial use and represent individual people," said Facebook. 

"We are working with EJAP to transfer their profile to a Page and convert their friends to followers. We have offered to transfer the profile to a Page for EJAP, which will convert their friends to followers."

EJAP's page was taken down soon a day after it came out with the statement on June 3. Lingao's post, on the other hand, was deleted last week. 

Amid concerns of censorship, Facebook said pages or posts could only be taken down if they go against its standards. 

"In order to maintain and open and safe environment on Facebook, we have global community standards that describe what is and is not allowed on our service. Anyone can report content to us if they think it goes against our standards," Facebook said in a statement. 

Facebook, which prohibits nudity, hate speech, and graphic violence, also said it does not matter how many times a piece of content is reported because "it will be treated the same."

"One report is enough to take down content if it violates our policies, and multiple reports will not lead to the removal of content if it meets our standards," it said. —Virgil Lopez/JST, GMA News