The Philippine Government’s War Against Facebook

The Philippine government has initiated its stealth war against social media.

From the Philippine Inquirer,

Be wary of foreigners suddenly “liking” you on Facebook or other social networking sites, an official of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) advised netizens.

PDEA spokesperson Derrick Carreon said many drug mules or persons used to transport drugs through international borders were befriended and recruited online.

The Philippine government is on a slippery slope towards social media censorship and has used its war against drugs as justification.

It’s best to know that there are two different issues: war against drugs and war against social media.

Slippery slope simply means the government uses the war on drugs as a launching pad to expand political control over social media. They start with “warnings” first. Later this will be buttressed with statutes. Interventionism begets interventionism.

The war against social media is aimed at restricting the flow of information that runs against the interest of the government—via censorship.

Governments have been reeling from spontaneous People Power movements abroad fueled by social media, thus sees this information medium as a threat which must be neutralized.

For now, the so-called “warnings” are directed at the recruitment of drug Mules or carriers.

Shown below from PDEA (2008),

Drug mules have been exploding, the chart has not been updated. Yesterday’s TV news program reported 600+.

The propaganda: social media will be a major tool for the growth of drug abuse, thus must be controlled. Creeping government interventionism starts with public conditioning by indoctrination.

The Philippines is now among the top 10 major Facebook users (checkfacebook).

This means that the sin of 1,000 or less, will be used as an excuse to control the activities of 22 million Filipinos. As usual, interventionists apply the fallacy of composition to justify their actions.

Yet PDEA does NOT explain why from 20,000 reported cases of drug abuse in 1972, in 2004, the year Facebook was launched, drug usage has exploded to 6.7 million. (PDEA timeline)

The Philippine population in 1972 was 38.7 million, in 2004, the number of Filipinos grew to 83.9 million: this means about 8% of Filipinos are drug users (as of 2004), despite the statutes RA 9165, EO 218.

In short, drug trade and use has been flourishing in spite of Facebook. Facebook as a social medium functions as aggravating factor rather than the root cause.

However, Facebook will likely bear the brunt of the government [regulatory] failure (drug war) and the attempts to curtail the freedom of speech and expression.