Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, June 13) — The National Privacy Commission has invited Facebook Philippines for a meeting on June 16 to discuss the mystery in the surge of dummy accounts on the social media platform.
In a statement on Saturday, the NPC said the formal meeting was set “to seek more information regarding the numerous reports of impostor Facebook accounts.”
“The National Privacy Commission is focused on probing the cause of the ‘privacy panic’ triggered by these impostor accounts and instituting remedial measures to protect Filipino Facebook users,” Privacy Commissioner Raymund Liboro said.
He added that the commission is also coordinating with other government agencies conducting a separate investigation into the issue, including the Department of Justice.
Tug-ani, the official student publication of the University of the Philippines-Cebu, first reported on June 6 that several Facebook profiles bore the names of its students. The discovery came a day after the arrest of some students who joined a protest in front of the school against the controversial anti-terrorism bill.
More netizens sounded the alarm after seeing empty Facebook profiles bearing their names. They suspect that vocal government critics have been targeted after some of them started receiving threats from the dummy accounts.
Facebook on Thursday said their initial probe showed no evidence of “coordinated or malicious activity.” It expressed its commitment to validate the authenticity of the accounts and remove any profile that violates its policies. It provided no data yet on how many pages have been taken down.
Liboro earlier told CNN Philippines it was “too early to determine” whether the case was brought about by an internal glitch or external factors, as claimed by some groups.
