Recto asks DICT, Comelec to protect 2022 polls from 'foreign trolls'

Senate President Pro Tempore Ralph Recto on Thursday called on the government to prevent foreign intrusion in the upcoming 2022 national elections after Facebook took down suspicious Chinese accounts interfering in Asian and American politics.

"Foreign troll factories should be blocked from polluting the 2022 elections. Let the latter's results be based on the free and informed choice of our people, and not on manufactured stories designed to mislead them," Recto said in a statement.

"When unleashed in our elections, this virus is as dangerous as malwares in ballot counting machines," he added.

Recto said the Commission on Elections (Comelec) and the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) must come up with efforts to "detect and repel" foreign interference in the national polls as early as now.

"The Comelec and the DICT should work as one on this, on how to install a firewall that would keep alien-generated or alien-funded content from fomenting hatred and widening the division among our people," he said.

While believing that election candidates would not be conspiring in endeavors to advance alien interests, the Senate leader cautioned that "nothing prevents foreign agents who have so much at stake here from propping up their favored candidate and pulling down the ones they dislike."

According to Facebook, the China-based accounts it took down have posted about Beijing's interest in the South China Sea, Hong Kong, contents supportive of President Rodrigo Duterte and Sara Duterte's potential run in the 2022 presidential election.

The network used fake accounts "to pose as locals in the countries they targeted" and used Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) to "make themselves appear like they were coming from different countries.

Aside from these, Facebook also removed a network of fake accounts and pages allegedly linked to the Philippine military and police due to "coordinated inauthentic behavior."—AOL, GMA News