With a company like Facebook, having billions of accounts, regardless of whether the accounts are real or fake, make their investors happy by giving them a semblance of Facebook’s reach. The billions of accounts is what attracts advertisers to Facebook (and gives Facebook its billions in dollars). Whilst Facebook has reported to be deleting fake accounts in the millions, it is not actively pursuing measures to prevent fake account creation — again, it does not align with their revenue generation. Now fake Facebook accounts of students, employees (including faculty and officials), and alumni from the University of the Philippines (and I have heard that other Philippine universities are also affected) are being created en masse, with no other intention but to tarnish their reputation, or worse, make them a target of the anti-terrorism bill that is currently being contested by almost everyone, except probably the Philippine senators and representatives who passed it. With the reputation of the University of the Philippines (UP) as one of the universities that go against the tide to defend human rights, this identity theft is dangerous as it paints a huge target behind the backs of anyone identified to be from UP! UP’s Data Protection Officer (DPO) immediately released an advisory informing stakeholders about this identity theft, to be vigilant, and if you are one of the victims, to report it to the UP DPO, the National Privacy Commission (NPC), and Facebook. Whilst at first glance it might be a simple task to do, in reality, it is not. Imagine adding the task of actively searching for fake accounts on Facebook to protect yourself and doing it every so often. Not only that, imagine having to explain to anyone who fell for the fake accounts that it isn’t you, that your real account is so and so. Now do that as long as you maintain and use your Facebook account, and then ask yourself, is it worth it? UP will also have to guard itself against fake news on Facebook as well. UP will need to issue a statement every time a fake account of an official pops up and posts fake news. Perhaps it’s a good idea to create a specialized office, the UP Anti-misinformation Office, to do this full-time! However, is it worth it? So the question remains — what is UP to do? My unpopular opinion is to simply drop Facebook, don’t legitimize it. Declare Facebook as the prime source of misinformation — no need to fact check (aren’t you tired of doing this, specially during elections), as anything from Facebook is now fake news. Banning Facebook as one of the platforms for official UP announcements, for communications and for use in classes, will render Facebook useless. No matter how many fake accounts are created, how many fake news are posted, the fact that UP bans its use, nobody will believe these accounts and whatever they post. UP needs to remember that it has its own official website as its main digital medium to disseminate information. Besides, UP existed before Facebook, and for the longest time, it has survived and excelled without any help from Facebook. By the way, thanks to the Association for Computing Machine Student Chapter in UP (UP ACM), they alerted me of a fake Facebook account using my name. They know that I do not have a Facebook account (and I know that my name is not unique either), but any account created within 14 days is considered fake, and should be reported. To reiterate and for the record, I do not have a Facebook, Instagram or WhatsApp account, and so should you!