MANILA, Philippines — Sen. Raffy Tulfo on Wednesday pressed officials of Meta Platforms Inc. to promptly remove a “deepfake” Facebook post targeting President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr.
During a Senate Committee on Public Information and Mass Media hearing on fake news, Tulfo said the manipulated content, reportedly posted on Feb. 2, remained accessible more than a week later despite being reported to the platform.
“Our President is being disrespected blatantly and you're not doing anything about it and you said you're still processing it. Come on, take it down!” Tulfo told Meta Public Policy Head for Indonesia and the Philippines Berni Moestafa.
Moestafa responded that based on the latest information he received, the content had been removed, but acknowledged that similar materials could still be circulating under different accounts.
“We'll take a look again whether it's taken down or not but for me, I understand that it's already been taken down,” he said, adding that once a violating post is removed, the platform can expand action to identical or related misinformation.
Tulfo, however, maintained that the post was still visible during the hearing and called for immediate takedown.
Meta Philippines Public Policy Head Gio Tiongson said the content had been reported through the government reporting channel by the Department of Information and Communications Technology and that the identified links were taken down.
He said the company would verify if the same content had been reposted elsewhere and asked for the specific link for immediate review.
“May we ask po for the link and we'll immediately take it down,” Tiongson said.
The hearing forms part of the Senate’s broader review of fake news and deepfake content online.
Lawmakers noted that the proposed anti-fake news legislation is among the priority measures endorsed by Marcos and the Legislative-Executive Development Advisory Council.