Cascolan says over 1,000 PNP-maintained social media accounts remain operational

Philippine National Police (PNP) chief Police General Camilo Pancratius Cascolan on Monday said more than 1,000 social media accounts maintained by the police force have remained "up and operational" since Facebook took down some of those allegedly linked to the police and the military.

At a press briefing, Cascolan said that as of October 4, "all 1,585 social media pages and networking sites officially owned and maintained by PNP units and offices remain up and operational, although many of which are not actively engaging with netizens."

"All these sites are monitored by the National Headquarters and PNP units maintaining these social networking sites are constantly reminded to strictly observe PNP Rules on social media use, and cautioned against libelous posts and content that may trigger cyber-bullying, and those that infringe on civil rights that protect data privacy, intellectual property and confidentiality of information," Cascolan said.

The PNP chief reiterated that the police had asked the management of Facebook for a list of the alleged PNP-linked accounts that were taken down due to "coordinated inauthentic behavior."

Cascolan said their request has been acknowledged already by the Facebook.

"In response to our concern, we received a reply from Mr. Rob Abrams, Trust and Safety Manager for Asia Pacific of Facebook Singapore, acknowledging our correspondence with implied assurance of availability of the requested information upon compliance of certain internal requisites," Cascolan said.

"We have yet to hear from Facebook again since then but we are confident of their favorable response to our request," he added.

The PNP has denied that the purged fake accounts were connected to the police force. The police organization has insisted that proper etiquette is observed by all their units on social media use. — RSJ, GMA News