The Philippine National Police (PNP) has ordered its Anti-Cybercrime Group (ACG) to provide the list of the Facebook accounts being linked to the police organization which were deactivated for allegedly engaging in misrepresentation and coordinated malicious behavior.
PNP spokesman Ysmael Yu said they are now waiting for the result of the accounting of the ACG and the Information Technology Management System (ITMS) of all the alleged PNP-related fake accounts and pages that were shut down by Facebook last week.
“We want to conduct an internal investigation on this matter especially if there are people using the PNP organization. We want to know who are these people who created the fake accounts because the PNP is being put in a bad light,” Yu told the Manila Bulletin in an interview.
Yu had earlier issued statements disowning the fake Facebook accounts and pages of the PNP that were shut down by Facebook for coordinated misbehavior. The fake accounts are reportedly engaging in malicious behavior to support some politicians and attack critics of the government, as well as post disinformation against those perceived as enemies of the State.
President Duterte had earlier threatened to shut down Facebook in the country for its decision to delete the Facebook accounts of the police and military that are engaging in peace and order advocacies.
Yu explained that the purpose of the investigation is to improve the existing policies of the PNP on social media, saying social media is important in information dissemination of the good works of the PNP.
“We want to correct and improve if there are some issues that go against our own protocols with regard to social media. What we want to do is to continue reaching out to the people we serve and protect through the good works and peace and order plans we have for them through social media,” said Yu.
He explained that the PNP leadership does not tolerate inappropriate behavior of any of its personnel in social media since every personnel of the PNP represents the entire organization.