The social media giant has taken down accounts and pages that are allegedly connected to the Philippine military and the police for violating its policy against foreign or government interference.  Facebook directly linked the Philippine military and the police to the network of accounts that attempts to influence public debates and discussions via coordinated and inauthentic behavior.

“There is a domestic network operating within the Philippines.  This network, we removed about 57 Facebook accounts, 31 pages, and 20 Instagram accounts.  In terms of size, they have about 276,000 accounts following their pages and about 5,500 following their Instagram accounts.”  Said Nathaniel Gleicher, Facebook's Head of Security Policy.

"We are attributing this network to the Philippine Military and the Philippine police" Gleicher added.

Facebook also found out about several clusters of connected activities all of which relied on fake accounts to evade enforcement.

Gleicher also said that the operation appeared to have been most active and greatly accelerated on their behavior in 2019 and 2020.  The fake accounts posted primarily on Filipino and English about local news and events including domestic politics, the military’s activity against terrorism, and the anti-terror bill.  The FB pages also posted about criticism of communism including posts against the Communist Party of the Philippine, the New People’s Army, and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines.

Aside from the domestic network that Facebook has taken down, another network of accounts was removed from the platform.  A China-linked network with 155 Facebook accounts, 11 Facebook pages, nine Facebook groups, and six Instagram accounts that focused primarily on the Philippines was also taken down.  There are about 200,000 people following and engaging with this China-linked network across all its activities. The Facebook research team discovered several clusters of connected activities that rely on fake accounts to pose as a local, post into groups and comment on other people’s posts.  These fake accounts use Virtual Private Networks to make it appear that they are from the Philippines.  They posted in Chinese, Filipino, and English about global news and current events including Beijing’s interest in the South China Sea and contents supporting President Duterte and Sarah Duterte’s potential candidacy in the 2022 presidential elections.

Facebook is ramping up its investigation into suspected inauthentic-coordinated behavior in the region to find and expose the operations that attempt to influence users.