Meta Hopes to Create Safer Online Environment for Upcoming PH Elections

In the run-up to the 2022 elections, Facebook and Instagram’s parent company Meta noted on Wednesday that it will be implementing “stronger” safety and protection features across its platforms for public figures, celebrities, journalists, women, and others who are prone to online harassment.

Meta is planning to launch Facebook Protect in the Philippines in an effort to secure the accounts of candidates, elected officials, political parties, and their staff to create a safer online environment. “We help these accounts with stronger account setting such as 2-factor authentication and we will also monitor for potential hacking of the account,” explained Malina Enlund, Meta Safety Policy Manager for APAC.

Eligible accounts will get a prompt from the platform to enroll for Facebook Protect. In addition, a dedicated safety hub will be made available for journalists — especially women journalists — granted their vulnerability to online harassment as they cover the polls. “We want to enable the freedom of expression and legitimate public discourse around those in the public eye…We do believe that public figures should not be subjected to sexualized attacks,” added Enlund.

“Recently we launched a new policy that helps protect people from mass harassment and intimidation from multiple accounts. We will now remove coordinated efforts of mass harassment that target individuals at the heightened risk of harm.” Facebook has likewise implemented necessary changes to curtail any form of “sexualized attacks.”

Subjects involving sexualized content, profiles, pages, groups, or events sexualizing public figures; derogatory photoshopped images and drawings; attacks on negative physical descriptions; degrading content depicting individuals in the process of bodily functions; unwanted sexualized commentary; repeated content which is sexually harassing, among others will be removed from the platform.

“We made these changes because we believe that we don’t want the public to weaponize a public figure’s appearance which is really unnecessary and is not related to the public figure’s work,” elaborated Enlund. Facebook Safety Center and the Women’s Safety Hub have been made available to all users as additional safety tools. Through its Stop.ncii.org initiative, the platform has also collaborated with certain organizations to inhibit the posting of non-consensual content.

As more women are running for public office, Meta head of Women’s Safety Cindy Southworth noted that the company is also working with the Commission on Elections to allow women leaders to make use of the safety tools available on its platforms. Under the Meta Women in Politics program, a series of safety training will be conducted for women leaders and public figures in the country. “This program includes training that we will hold in the coming weeks on how they can use platforms to engage their constituents as well as their safety and anti-harassment policies and tools,” added Southworth.

Source: ABS CBN