Meta takes down 'dangerous, malicious' Facebook accounts, pages ahead of Eleksyon 2022

Facebook's parent firm, Meta, took down hundreds of accounts and pages in the Philippines for engaging in various malicious activities ahead of the May 2022 elections

In a statement, Meta said it has also removed Facebook pages, groups, and accounts of “dangerous organizations” after violating its policies and engaging in violence.

Among these groups is the New People's Army (NPA), which Meta described as a "banned terrorist organization." The NPA is the armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines.

Meta also said it abolished a network of over 400 accounts, pages, and groups in the Philippines that worked together to “to systematically violate our Community Standards and evade enforcement.”

"The people behind this activity claimed to be hacktivists and relied primarily on authentic and duplicate accounts to post and amplify content about Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks, account recovery and defacing and compromising of primarily news entities' websites in the Philippines," Meta said.

Meanwhile, the Meta revealed that it also removed several clusters of activity that switched their pages and groups to the elections to increase their following.

“One Page that mainly shared non-political dance videos renamed itself to become ‘Bongbong Marcos news,’ while another Page that started off as supporting a politician later changed its name to ‘Your Financial Answer’ and began posting loan advice,” it cited.

Multiple clusters of activity from countries including Vietnam, Thailand, and the United States that posed as members of local communities in the Philippines in an apparent attempt to monetize people’s attention on the election were also removed, according to the Meta.

“They posed as supporters of political campaigns or local news entities and used names like Philippines Trending News, Duterte Live, Related to Francis Leo Marcos, and Pinas News. They claimed to share live footage while purporting to be local news sources on the ground in an attempt to drive people to their clickbait websites filled with ads,” Facebook’s parent firm said.

It has also taken down a dozen clusters of activity focused on fake engagement following a few days remaining before May 2022 polls.

The Meta vowed that it continues to combat misinformation, noting that it removes content that will keep normal political processes from functioning such as “content intended to suppress voting, as well as certain highly deceptive manipulated media.” —KBK, GMA News