President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. is open to recommendations to ban Facebook and other social media platforms that could influence young people to engage in harmful behavior, Palace Press Officer Claire Castro said on Tuesday.
The remarks came after the Cybercrime Investigation and Coordinating Center said it was considering recommending a ban on Facebook in the country following a deadly shooting at Ateneo de Zamboanga University.
‘Among all gaming apps, the president is open to removing anything that could be considered harmful to the youth and to our country,’ Castro said at a briefing when asked whether Malacañang supports the idea.
Castro noted that some social media platforms not only expose young people and the general public to violence but are also being used to spread fake news.
‘It also needs to be studied whether the lack of accountability for social media platforms contributes to the spread of fake news in our country,’ she added. ‘If the response is slow, it would be worth considering and studying whether they should remain part of our system.’
However, Castro said support for banning harmful social media platforms does not mean restricting freedom of expression.
‘Fake news is different from simply expressing your opinion or being a critic,’ she said.
‘That is not prohibited. No one is being prohibited from being a critic, especially now, under President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s administration,’ she added.
On Monday, Interior Secretary Jonvic Remulla said the perpetrator of the fatal Ateneo de Zamboanga University shooting had an online search history of websites supposedly containing hate speech.
‘His search pattern went to evil people, nihilism, anti-Semitism, anti-LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender), and a lot of hate sites,’ he explained in an interview on ANC’s Headstart.
Remulla attributed this to the shooter being supposedly influenced by a ‘deep dark web of people fomenting hate and discord and violence in order to resolve your problems’ inside chat groups on the game Roblox.