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Phil. Gov’t pressures Facebook over Fans?

There was a story in the Guardian UK that claims the Philippine’s is becoming like China in web censorship and I agreed to do an interview for an article as a rebuttal saying that the Philippines is among the most liberal in terms of general internet activity and social media and that there has been no cases of the government using its power & influence to pressure sites like YouTube, Facebook and the likes to its advantage.

Not until this month when the original FB Fan Page of Pres. Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino (facebook.com/noynoy.aquino) was shut down by Facebook, allegedly under the order of the office of the President. All of the 2.2 million Facebook fans were gone overnight. This page was maintained by an supporter even before Noynoy announced he’s running for president.

On the other hand, a new and separate Fan Page (facebook.com/presidentnoy), created by the office of the President, also got a nice treatment from Facebook. With just over 100k Likes, it ballooned to 1.6 million in a matter of days.

The most logical reason for these changes was Facebook manually removed the Likes from one Fan Page and transferred it to the other Fan Page which is controlled by the government. All done magically without notice from Facebook.

The reason might seem pretty obvious — the original fan page was moderated by groups and individuals independent of the office of the President and allows free flow of content, positive or negative, on the page. Not good if you want to “filter” the flow of communication.

Taking over the fan page would look harsh so they decided to tell Facebook to just shut down the old one and transfer the Likes to the new one. The Philippines being in the top 10 most active FB users in the world, Facebook didn’t blinked an eye and gave in to the request.

Update: Just read how the whole thing transpired here.

Update: Sec. Sonny Coloma of the Communications Group issued 2 statements here and here. They are basically denying they don’t have any hand in this incident and it was all Facebook’s actions. Strange. I didn’t know you can request FB to transfer Fans/Likes just like that.

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Avatar for Abe Olandres

Abe is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of YugaTech with over 20 years of experience in the technology industry. He is one of the pioneers of blogging in the country and considered by many as the Father of Tech Blogging in the Philippines. He is also a technology consultant, a tech columnist with several national publications, resource speaker and mentor/advisor to several start-up companies.

28 Responses

  1. Avatar for JerrickYeoh JerrickYeoh says:

    That still OK which government just change the Facebook fan become others Facebook fan pages.
    My dear Malaysia even worst. Government plan to banned of using Facebook in Malaysia due to spread so bad news about own Government.

  2. Avatar for carlobaes carlobaes says:

    George Siliangco at Amvic Taruc! Tingnan niyo ginawa mo sa mga volunteers ni Pnoy. Nagtitiis sila sa bagong kawawa nilang FB page. http://on.fb.me/dhJezN
    Well…at least hindi sila nagnanakaw ng FB page. Pursigido pa rin silang gumawa ng bago.

  3. Avatar for lawreas lawreas says:

    misleading title?? can’t you see the question mark?
    it’s not stating as it is true or already confirmed..

    sa isang news writing acceptable yung ganyang title..
    e yung ang issue eh.. it’s all over the news friends, sa tv, sa net.. people are asking about it.. and the title of this post is straightforward as it can be..

    vovo!

  4. Avatar for lawreas lawreas says:

    It all boils down dun sa lack of consent ng FB na ilipat yung mga tao na nag-like..

    I mean, without even any notice??? di mo rin masabi na facebook lang yan, kc the page itself has become the ground for self-expression..

    kahit sinong tao pa yan, celebrity o hinde, unethical yun! Facebook is not affiliated with any government body, nabubuhay sa ads.. so sa consumer’s (user) AT advertiser’s perspective, hindi maganda yun.. ala naman yan sa terms and agreements nung nagsign-up ka for fb ha!

    e di sana shut-down nalang ung unang page, at nag suggest na ilike yung new page..

    tska deleting/moderating negative comments?? para san pa yun?? nagka-guts pa sila na gumawa ng page. haha.. I’m one of the likers in the new page, and I experienced my comment getting deleted, despite it’s decency.

    dun sa mga fanboy dyan, again this is not a personal take of sir yuga to anyone, this is for the unacceptable move of facebook or whoever is involved..

  5. Avatar for Juan Garcia Juan Garcia says:

    Go to the official page at www.facebook.com/presidentnoy and you will definitely and concretely see that the page’s admins are not censoring the comments. Ben Totanes just wants to control it. Mabye he’s profiting from it. Hahaha!

  6. Avatar for Whatif Whatif says:

    Agree with blitz. Even with “?” Blog title is misleading..

    -baka sinadya ni mr abe para as usual dami hits ang site nya.. Dami hits=dami pera
    J/K

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