02 Jun Facebook Erased Journalist’s Anti-Marcos Post – Other Facebook Accounts Who Shared it was Suspended too!
On Wednesday, June 1, TV5 anchor Ed Lingao voiced his sentiments about Facebook’s slamming down of his anti-Marcos post on May 24. Other Facebook users who shared his post were also suspended days after.
“I have just been informed by Facebook that they have removed my post on the Libingan issue because I violated Facebook community standards. Are they serious? It makes you wonder if the Facebook reviewers even read what they strike down,” Lingao said.
Lingao’s post was directed to the statement that president-elect Rodrigo Duterte said. Duterte proposed to transfer the late Ferdinand Marcos into the Libingan ng Mga Bayani. Among many others who opposed such decision by Duterte, Lingao is the more furious who posted his opinions in a supposed-to-be freedom-driven platform of Facebook.
He voiced out that such decision won’t start the “healing” process that the country needs, pointing to the 10,000 victims of the Marcos regime and the stolen $10 billion from the Philippines.
“So really, who should move on and allow healing? The thousands who were victimized? Are the prosecutors still looking for another 5 billion dollars in hidden wealth? Or a family that chooses to ignore all this by funding a macabre quarter-century spectacle at the family mausoleum in Ilocos because it simply wants the patriarch buried as a hero. Who is really holding the nation hostage here? And so, really, who should move on?” Lingao wrote in his post.
A follow-up post next to this one was also deleted by Facebook.
On Wednesday, Lingao noticed that he cannot post any status updates within 24 hours.
Meanwhile, journalist Inday Espina-Varona said that some of her colleagues and friends who shared Lingao’s post have been blocked on Facebook too!
On her status update, she wrote, “Why? Because of an apparent deluge of Marcos troll complaints after a page they are part of shared Ed Lingao’s recent post on the family of the late dictator.”
Posts like these are being taken down by Facebook based on user reviews. Here are the categories that a user can use to report any post on Facebook: hate speech, violence and graphic content, nudity, bullying and harassment, direct threats, attacks on public figures, criminal activity, sexual violence and exploitation, dangerous organizations, regulated goods, and self-injury, among others.
These are the community standards that Facebook used to qualify Lingao’s post as one that has to be taken down.
Yet, Varona said in her post, “The instances of Facebook punishing LEGITIMATE users for LEGITIMATE posts, on account of orchestrated moves by malicious political, economic, government interests are growing. It is ironic, but not really surprising, that platforms once conceived as havens for freedom of expression are under attack, with its rich owners and managers allowing this manipulation by the powers that be.”
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