Facebook, The Philippines, and Spam Accounts
On September 27, President Rodrigo Duerte of the Philippines lashed out at Facebook for taking down fake accounts that supported his policies. He went as far as to make vague threats to shut the platform down in the Philippines. The company said last week that it had taken down two networks, one based in China and one in the Philippines. According to Facebook, these networks used fake accounts in order to post information about different subjects, such as Phillippine politics. Facebook stated that both networks had misled users about their identities. The president of the Philippines disagrees and has made threats against the company.
This conflict between the leader of the Philippines and Facebook brings forth the question of when is it right for a social media platform to remove reportedly “fake” accounts from their platform and if they are actually removing fake accounts. Concepts within network graphs can be used in order to explain how these fake accounts can be caught and proven to be fake or spam accounts. Algorithms are used in order to find the content that is deemed as fake/spam. The way these algorithms work correspond to concepts within network graphs. In a network graph with a fake/spam account, this account’s node would not connect any groups of people together. It may appear to be a local bridge, but in reality, it is not connecting any groups of other nodes. Therefore, Facebook cannot be attacked for supporting certain views over others because they’re algorithms are simply trying to find the odd account out from the other accounts regardless of the agenda surrounding the fake account. Political leaders can’t condemn Facebook for being biased because these leaders are trying to promote bias for themselves. Therefore, Facebook’s algorithms don’t support one political side or the other. It is trying to eliminate accounts that are not being operated by a real person.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/29/business/rodrigo-duterte-facebook-philippines.html