Red-tagging sprees amplified via Facebook ads — report

MANILA, Philippines — Facebook has failed to filter paid advertisements that falsely label activists as communist sympathizers even after human rights groups' repeated attempts to flag it, according to a new report by an international rights watchdog.

The report by Amnesty International, published on Monday, October 14, found numerous paid ads on Meta's (Facebook's parent company) Ad Library that red-tag members of progressive party-lists Kabataan and Gabriela, whose representatives have also been directly vilified by the government's anti-insurgency task force. 

Despite Meta’s claims of clamping down on harmful content, its automated ad review system is giving dubious accounts free reign to amplify what is essentially a digital witch-hunt of progressive groups, according to Amnesty International's investigation.

Besides the social media giant's faulty ad review system, Amnesty International also criticized Meta's broader failure to prevent government and non-government entities from using its platform to harass, intimidate and threaten human rights defenders in the Philippines. 

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Speaking to young human rights defenders and building on its analysis of Facebook content and ads, Amnesty International found consistent failures by Meta to enforce its community guidelines and to remove red-tagging content that incites hatred and violence.

“Inadequate content moderation and ad approval mechanisms, and a failure to track the effectiveness of its risk mitigation measures, have turned Facebook into an enabling environment that contributes to serious human rights violations,” Wilnor Papa, Head of Activism and Mobilization at Amnesty International Philippines, said.

Meta did not respond to Amnesty International's request for comment on the findings of its report but said in a July 2024 letter that it "[assesses] allegations of red-tagging against a number of policies," including its policy on coordinating harm and promoting crime. 

Under this policy, Meta said it would remove content that "exposes the identity of someone who is alleged to be a member of an ‘at-risk’ group, where these