Page by parents protecting students from NPA recruitment taken down by Facebook, AFP chief says

A page set up by parents fighting the recruitment of students by communist rebels and their front organizations has been among those taken down by Facebook, the military said Thursday as it lamented the social media giant's decision.

The Hands Off Our Children (HOOC), according to Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) chief Lieutenant General Gilbert Gapay, is a campaign launched by a group of parents to protect their children against "violent extremism."

"The recruitment machinery of the communist terrorist group has long been found to victimize students, conditioning them to become cadres and armed members of the New People's Army," Gapay said in a statement.

"Their Facebook Page was instrumental to their campaign to raise awareness on the vulnerability of children at the hands of communist front organizations," he added.

Gapay said the "arbitrary" shutdown of HOOC's page "adds to the limited spaces afforded to them and the unsympathetic ears of some sectors."

In a virtual press briefing on Tuesday, Nathaniel Gleicher, Facebook's Head of Security Policy, said they have removed a network of fake accounts and pages allegedly linked to the Philippine military and police due to coordinated inauthentic behavior (CIB), which is a violation of its community standards.

According to Gleicher, his team saw "several clusters of connected activity" to post content, to comment, and to manage pages which accelerated in 2019 and 2020.

These accounts reportedly contain posts about domestic politics, the military's activities against terrorism, the anti-terrorism bill, criticism of communism, youth activists and the opposition, criticism of the Communist Party of the Philippines, the New People's Army, and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines.

On Wednesday,  Gapay said they met with Facebook Head of Public Policy in the Philippines Clare Amador and her team and discussed Facebook's global initiatives in combating terrorism and dealing with harmful content on their platform.

Gapay, in his statement on Thursday, said they are hoping that with their partnership with Facebook Philippines, "legitimate advocacies will be respected, if not uplifted, to prevent the spread of violent extremism and protect every Filipino child from the communist terror group."

Following Facebook's decision to take down accounts allegedly linked to the military and police, Malacañang asked the social media giant to exercise prudence.

“Facebook’s recent action of taking down over 100 fake accounts is a matter we leave to the sound judgment and discretion of the popular global social networking company,” presidential spokesperson Harry Roque said at a televised briefing on Wednesday. —KBK, GMA News