Trolls, be warned.
After the conduct of the May 2022 elections, the Commission on Elections (Comelec) on Monday, May 30, said it will push for a law against the utilization of social media trolls during the campaign period.
Social media trolls are those who deliberately start an argument or post inflammatory or aggressive comments aiming to provoke people into reacting. Recently, they have been reportedly weaponized to attack certain personalities to spread lies against them to destroy their public image.
“We will push the Congress to enact a law specifically for the campaign, specifically the use of trolls during campaign period,” Comelec Commissioner George Erwin M. Garcia said during an interview with ANC.
Saying with the “absence of a law regulating social media” in the country, the Comelec commissioner himself admitted that the poll body is “powerless” to monitor such social media activities.
Garcia said such is the reason why the poll body will seek social media regulation during the campaign period.
“That’s the reason why in the next Congress we would really push for a social media regulation, at least as far as election expenditure and campaign is concerned,” he said.
He said that personalities who have been attacked by social media trolls can file a complaint, but he noted such is hard to prove.
“Easily anybody who will be victimized by these trolls can file cases in relation to cyber-libel, but of course it’s very difficult to prove it, at the same time it’s very difficult to pinpoint the liability of individuals in this case,” said Garcia.