Vice President Leni Robredo on Sunday reiterated her call for vigilance and accountability on social media, as she welcomed Facebook’s ban on a Philippine company known to have spread disinformation on the social networking site.

Speaking on her weekly radio show, VP Leni said it was “good news” that Facebook was cleaning up its platform, taking down pages and accounts found to have repeatedly violated its policies.

“Napakalaking regalo ito sa taumbayan,” she said on BISErbisyong LENI. “[Marami pang pages] na hindi nate-take down, pero puwede na ito, at least umuusad. Sana tuloy-tuloy na gawin ito ng Facebook. Hindi naman ito para sa atin, pero ito sa buong PIlipinas—na okay lang naman mag-criticize, pero dapat iyong basehan ng kritisismo ay totoo.”

As it removed a total of 220 pages, 73 accounts, and 29 Instagram accounts, the social media site announced that it has banned Twinmark Media Enterprises, a digital marketing group from the Philippines. According to Facebook, the company “has repeatedly violated” their misrepresentation and spam policies, through actions that included “coordinated inauthentic behavior, the use of fake accounts, leading people to ad farms, and selling access to Facebook Pages to artificially increase distribution and generate profit.”

Among the pages taken down were Trending News Portal and Filipino Channel Online. The said pages, which had millions of followers, carried false information, including fake news against known opposition figures.
During Sunday’s show, VP Leni called on social media users to be more mindful of things they share online.

“Sa social media kasi, halos wala nang accountability,” she said. “Iyong sa akin lang, tingnan kung sino iyong nag-post ng balita. Kasi kung hindi naman reputable iyong nag-post ng balita, hindi natin kilala kung sino iyon, huwag magpapaniwala kaagad.”

“Mas mabuti na ang paniwalaan, iyong mga nagpa-practice talaga ng accountability, kasi hindi iyan magpo-post nang hindi nila vinerify,” she added.