Palace steers clear of social media pages taken down by Facebook

President Rodrigo Duterte had no hand in the social media accounts linked to his former publicist that have been taken down by Facebook, Malacañang said Friday.

“The President has nothing to do with those accounts,” presidential spokesperson Salvador Panelo said in a text message.

Nathaniel Gleicher, Facebook's head of Cybersecurity Policy, announced at a press conference earlier Friday that they took down 67 pages, 68 accounts, 40 groups and 25 Instagram accounts associated with public relations man Nic Gabunada due to "misleading behavior."

Gleicher said the people behind the activity “attempt to conceal their identities and make them look like their independent but in fact our investigation could confirm that this was a cluster of coordinated behavior” that has links to a network supposedly organized by Gabunada.

"What we saw is this cluster of these pages, groups and accounts, a combination of authentic and fake accounts that were basically being used to drive messaging on behalf and related to political candidates," the Facebook executive said.

He also said these fake accounts usually post candidate updates and views, alleged misconduct of political opponents as well as controversial events that were purported to occur during previous administrations.

Gabunada handled the social media campaign of Duterte’s presidential run in 2016.

Last January, Facebook removed a total of 220 pages, 73 accounts, as well as 29 Instagram accounts due to policy violations. —LDF, GMA News