The Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) is considering a temporary suspension of Facebook operations in the Philippines due to the continued spread of deepfakes and misleading content.
DICT Undersecretary Henry Rhoel Aguda issued the warning after sending a formal letter to Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook and principal shareholder of Meta Platforms, expressing the agency’s serious intent to clean the platform of fake news.
In the letter, Aguda urged Zuckerberg to take immediate action against the proliferation of false information, including AI-generated deepfake videos.
Meta is the parent company of both Facebook and Instagram.
Aguda emphasized that instead of serving as a platform for unity and connection, Facebook is gradually becoming a toxic online space due to the surge of deceptive content.
He also noted that the rapid spread of deepfakes is not limited to Facebook but has extended to other social media platforms and messaging apps such as Viber.