FB removes 200 accounts, pages, groups linked to Duterte’s former social media strategist

Gleicher said they removed 67 pages, 68 Facebook accounts, 40 groups, and 25 Instagram accounts. (ShutterStock)

A total of 200 pages, groups, and accounts linked to a network organized by the man behind the social media campaign of President Rodrigo Duterte in 2016 were taken down by Facebook for engaging in “coordinated inauthentic behavior.”

This according to Facebook’s head of cybersecurity policy Nathaniel Gleicher on Friday, March 29.

“The individuals behind this activity used a combination of authentic and fake accounts to disseminate content across a variety of Pages and Groups,” he said in a statement.

“Although the people behind this activity attempted to conceal their identities, our investigation found that this activity was linked to a network organized by Nic Gabunada,” it added.

Gleicher said they removed 67 pages, 68 Facebook accounts, 40 groups, and 25 Instagram accounts.

He added that around 3.6-million accounts followed one or more of those Facebook pages, while about 1.8-million accounts joined at least one of the groups and around 5,300 accounts followed one or more than those Instagram accounts.

These pages — Bong Go Supporters, Duterte Warriors, Pinulungang Binisaya, Trending Now, and Kuya Sonny Angara, among others — frequently posted about local and political news such as “the upcoming elections, candidate updates and views, alleged misconduct of political opponents, and controversial events that were purported to occur during past administrations.”

Facebook clarified that these were taken down not because of the content they post, but because of their behavior wherein the people behind such activity “coordinated with one another and used fake accounts to misrepresent themselves.”

In a phone interview with ABS-CBN, Gabunada said he was “surprised” by the move of Facebook.

“Before kasi Facebook automatically makes you part of the group without asking you. Now they have to give consent. My name is all over the place. This may be the reason why some pages, after they examined, nandoon ang pangalan ko (my name was there),” he said, adding, “I just thought this is all unfortunate na ilagay pangalan ko (to include my name),” he added.

The social networking company in January banned digital marketing group Twinmark Media Enterprises from its platform for violating its misrepresentation and spam policies.

There were 220 Facebook pages, 73 Facebook accounts, and 29 Instagram accounts affiliated with Twinmark were taken down by Facebook.

[READ: Facebook bans PH’s Twinmark Media Enterprises for violating misrepresentation, spam policies]

Prior to this, Facebook had shut down online pages and accounts from the Philippines, including those that support the President or pro-Duterte pages, last October 2018 for violating its spam and authenticity policies.

[READ: Malacañang unfazed by removal of pro-Duterte pages from Facebook]