The Commission on Human Rights (CHR) welcomes the move of Facebook to take down networks of fake accounts originating from or affecting the Philippines and its neighbouring countries in Southeast Asia, which Facebook had found to violate its policy against “coordinated inauthentic behavior.” Unknown entities were reportedly using these networks of fake accounts to post content, comment, and manage pages that circulate false information online.

Disinformation is a human rights issue. False information causes serious harm to society, and Facebook has been weaponised against democracy and freedom of expression.

Under human rights law, everyone has the right to receive and impart information. This presupposes correct and accurate information. Freedom of expression is also not an unlimited right and could be restricted to respect the rights or reputations of others and for the protection of national security, public order, public health, or morals. There are also other rights in International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) that may be impacted negatively by disinformation, such as the right to free and fair elections (Article 25); the right to privacy (Article 17); and the freedom from hate speech (Article 20), among other interrelated rights.

However, while we welcome the development, we bewail that Facebook does not adopt a fully rights-based approach to its policies. The policy of Facebook should be anchored on human rights, the foremost of which in this case is the right to receive and impart information and the right to freedom of expression. We remind Facebook that corporations and businesses have a moral responsibility to respect, protect, and remedy the violations of rights under the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. Social media’s bottomline should not be merely profits and money. It should also be the true and genuine connection of people to each other.

In our previous statement regarding the surge of Facebook dummy accounts, we recognised the responsibility of Facebook in protecting human rights given that their platform may be used to advance or curtail basic rights and fundamental freedoms. In recent times, social media platforms have played a crucial role in democratic exchanges and processes.

The alleged link of the removed accounts to the Philippine military and the Philippine police is alarming. If this is true, the Commission categorically states that this goes against the best interest of the public. In these times when cyber militias and troll farms are reported to drown out legitimate dissent and haphazardly label individuals and organisations as “enemies of the people,” such allegations cast doubts on the agenda of these institutions.

The result of the Facebook investigation signals the need for our policy makers to create laws against those who systematically purvey disinformation, carefully balancing them with the people’s right to freedom of expression. If proven that such malicious activity is a state-sponsored propaganda, the CHR commits to hold those perpetrators to account as they are violations of civil and political rights.

Apart from resorting solely to new laws, much of the work should be focused on improving digital literacy and critical thinking among internet users to reduce the impacts of disinformation. ###