Penalizing Facebook

Facebook threatens national security, the Marcos Jr. administration charged last week, a first ever such charge.

Insisting that a recent spate of fake news “poses a direct and escalating threat to public order, economic confidence, and national security,” the administration demanded the social media giant clamp down on fake news or face legal action, giving it nine days to comply.

In its demand, the administration gave Meta Platform Inc., parent company of Facebook, “48 hours to confirm receipt of the letter and seven calendar days to submit a detailed implementation plan” against recent viral fake news on the oil crisis and the President’s health.

How the administration intends to pursue legal action, contained in an April 9 joint letter by DICT Secretary Henry Aguda and PCO Acting Secretary Dave Gomez to Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, is broadly anchored on the claim “that the continued circulation of disinformation violates provisions under Article 154 of the Revised Penal Code and the Cybercrime Prevention Act.”

As I write this, Meta Platform Inc. officials have yet to respond to the government’s demands or indicate any immediate reaction to the government’s assertion that it is “the state’s duty to protect public order and national security.”

But whatever Facebook’s response will be, the administration’s letter raises the increasingly relevant question: does the persistent spread of fake news require straightforward political measures?

In other words, if Facebook is persistently abused by political opponents to destabilize a government, what prevents a government from bluntly controlling it or shutting it down entirely?

Responding politically to that difficult question — particularly in a fragile democracy like ours where freedom of the press and freedom of expression are held sacrosanct — has prompted serious fears.

Disinformation researcher Nikko Balbedina, for instance, recently told a news site that even building cases, like what is happening now, against people behind disinformation campaigns on Facebook carries the “severe risk” of creating a chilling effect on press freedom and free expression.

For mitigating those risks, Balbedina and other free speech advocates instead strongly advocate for stronger media and information literacy (MIL) campaigns to address the pandemic of fake news.

In the same breath, however, Balbina also admits that “most MIL initiatives simply do not reach the vulnerable demographics that need them the most.”

But even if educating people about how fake news operates and spreads seems the better option, Balbina strongly insists social media platforms like Facebook and TikTok must also do their part by publicizing how their often-secretive proprietary computer algorithms work.

“Education alone cannot outpace algorithms that are deliberately designed to prioritize outrage over facts,” he says.

In a sense, therefore, his point is about making Facebook own up to the fact that its computer algorithms now essentially exercise editorial responsibility, which previously fell on the shoulders of editors of print media, broadcasters and websites.

An often-cited study by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism found that social media and search engines nowadays act as editorial gatekeepers which affect the nature and range of news contents that users have access to.

As such, by insisting that Facebook also take measures against fake news the administration is saying that Facebook has to admit that its editorial influence over some 90 million Filipinos involves public responsibilities.

But Facebook wants us to believe it does not have editorial responsibilities. Particularly so since the social media giant is keen to avoid being labeled as a publisher since admitting this would make them liable to media regulations and libel laws.