A lawyer who is a known supporter of presidential candidate Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. on Thursday accused Vice President Leni Robredo of meeting with a top official of social media platform Facebook Philippines in a bid to remove or suspend the accounts of his supporters with big following.
“I have it confirmed that the camp of a presidential aspirant has met with officials of the social media platform Facebook Philippines to remove or suspend the FB accounts of BBM supporters with big following,” lawyer Larry Gadon said.
Meta, Facebook company’s new name, denied the claim of Gadon.
“No one from Meta recently met with the Vice President or her team, or made any agreement to remove political content from our platform. We do not arbitrarily censor peaceful political speech on Facebook, and we will only remove content if they violate our Community Standards.”
Robredo’s spokesman, Barry Gutierrez, likewise belied Gadon’s allegation.
“Not true,” he said.
Gadon alleged that a Facebook Philippines insider informed him that Robredo personally met with Chris Kuzhuppily, Facebook Philippine public policy manager; Roy Tan, politics and government outreach manager for Asia Pacific; and Kylie Mooney, government, politics, and advocacy partner manager.
“This is frightening because all the Facebook accounts that support Bongbong Marcos and Inday Sara’s UniTeam are likely to be suspended or permanently dismantled due to Leni’s camp’s incitement using fictitious accusations,” he said.
“Due to the large number of UniTeam supporters via Facebook, Leni’s camp wants to delete the FB pages of Bongbong and Inday’s supporters as well, as they did with the Twitter accounts of BBM supporters who claim to be theirs as well. Suspended,” Gadon added.
Sought for comment on the denial of Meta and Robredo’s camp, Marcos spokesman Vic Rodriguez declined to comment.
Twitter earlier suspended hundreds of accounts reportedly linked to supporters of Marcos, which the social media giant said had violated its rules on manipulation and spam.
More than 300 accounts had been removed “for violating our platform manipulation and spam policy,” Twitter said.
“With the Philippine elections taking place this May, we remain vigilant about identifying and eliminating suspected information campaigns targeting election conversations,” Twitter added.