The Philippines intensified the use of Facebook to undermine young activists’ rights to free speech and protest, Amnesty International reported on Monday. The report documents a coordinated campaign of state-sponsored harassment and intimidation.

The group contended that government officials and security forces are weaponizing social media platforms, particularly Facebook, to engage in “red-tagging,” which involves labeling individuals or groups as linked to communist rebels or terrorists without evidence. This practice often precedes more serious human rights abuses, including arbitrary arrests and enforced disappearances.

The report found that young activists face online harassment, surveillance and criminalization under the controversial 2020 Anti-Terrorism Act. Damini Satija, head of Amnesty Tech, highlighted that red-tagging has long been used to provoke threats against government critics, facilitated by Meta’s Facebook platform. The group also revealed that the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) frequently accuses student organizations of being communist “front organizations” on Facebook without evidence. Meta’s content moderation failures have exacerbated the spread of red-tagging content.

Amnesty International emphasized the urgent need to end red-tagging and called on the Philippine government to immediately halt all forms of intimidation, threats, and attacks against young activists. The organization urged the abolition of the NTF-ELCAC and demanded an independent, impartial, and transparent investigation into its practices.

Red-tagging in the country has escalated since President Rodrigo Duterte’s administration, particularly after the breakdown of peace talks with the Communist Party of the Philippines in 2017. Duterte’s Executive Order No.70, which established a “Whole-of-Nation approach in defeating Local Communist Terrorist Groups” marked the beginning of a renewed campaign against perceived leftist groups, including the creation of the NTF-ELCAC.

In a related development that underscores the gravity of the issue, the Philippine Supreme Court ruled on May 8, 2024, that red-tagging threatens people’s right to life, liberty, and security. This decision overturned a lower court’s 2023 ruling dismissing an activist’s petition for protection. Carlos Conde, senior Asia researcher at Human Rights Watch, stated that this ruling “acknowledges the suffering” caused by red-tagging and aligned with concerns raised by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights regarding the government’s counter-insurgency strategy.