Facebook vows action vs online child abuse, scams

MANILA, Philippines — The government and Facebook have agreed to take the necessary steps to address misinformation and other harmful content on the social media platform.

Information and Communications Technology Secretary Henry Aguda said Meta, which owns Facebook, will implement stricter measures to thwart threats on the internet to ensure the digital space of every Filipino is safe.

During their meeting, Aguda said that Meta public policy head for Indonesia and the Philippines Berni Moestafa and Meta Philippines public policy head Gio Tingson agreed on three landmark agreements against online harm.

Among these is strengthening actions against online sexual abuse and abuse and exploitation of children.

“Included in this is the faster identification, reporting and removal of content harming children,” Aguda said in a statement.

The other two aspects are more coordination against financial scams as well as deepfakes and misinformation.

“This is a great step and a clear result of the continued cooperation between government and the private sector,” Aguda said.

Sen. Raffy Tulfo has criticized Meta over the tech giant’s failure to swiftly remove a malicious deepfake photo of President Marcos on Facebook.

The manipulated image featured Marcos topless and inhaling from a pipe to imply drug use.