Rep. Rodge Gutierrez
SOCIAL MEDIA posts have been making false claims that China owns the world-famous group of islands of Palawan, it was revealed at the ongoing House hearing on online attacks and harassment from trolls and malicious vloggers.
1-Rider Party-list Rep. Rodge Gutierrez said that many people believe the “blatantly false claims.”
He pointed out that content suggesting Palawan is “beyond our territory” was “consciously created,” with users employing Chinese characters to defend the posts.
“Pag-aari daw ng China ang Palawan,” he said, emphasizing the dangerous spread of disinformation.
Commodore Jay Tarriela of the Philippine Coast Guard shared that this is the first time he heard of such a messaging campaign from China regarding the issue of the West Philippine Sea (WPS) and China’s growing aggression in the area, both at sea and on social media.
“This is a new kind of propaganda,” Tarriela said. “The national government will debunk this false claim.”
Tarriela said there is a WPS transparency group that monitors social media platforms.
He said that this is part of the evolving function of the PCG to fight disinformation, which is increasingly prevalent in different social media platforms.
TikTok, which was the only social media platform present at the hearing and represented by its public policy manager Peachy Paderna, assured the committee that it would address the concerns raised by the Philippine Coast Guard.
“We do not allow misinformation that causes harm, including disinformation that could lead to individual or community harm,” she said, adding that TikTok works with the appropriate teams to review flagged content and is committed to keeping harmful content off the platform.
Gutierrez, however, criticized this response as reactionary.
He pointed out that the flagged posts were frequently reposted by other users, causing them to go viral.
Paderna said TikTok employs proactive measures to tackle harmful content.
She said the platform uses machine technology to review videos quickly and has implemented a sweep to detect and remove misleading material.
“We rely on community reports to identify violations of our community guidelines and engage independent fact-checkers,” Paderna said.
But, Gutierrez said, flagged posts are reposted allowing the disinformation to spread further, even if individual videos are taken down.
In terms of TikTok’s content removal efforts, Paderna reported that from July to September, it removed 4 million videos that violated its guidelines.
“Ninety-eight percent of these were taken down in less than an hour,” she said.
