Lifting the ban on commonsense

Tragically, the Marcos administration seemed to have equated the readiness to ban Facebook as a demonstration of ‘political will’. It is not. It is more like an indicator of the absence of commonsense. The attempted ban on Discord explains everything about this unfortunate situation in the Marcos administration. At least as far as it concerns the crafting of a regulatory framework to keep the digital space safe and secure for the social media capital of world.

A couple of weeks ago, Presidential Communications Office Undersecretary Claire Castro, lamented in a press briefing: ‘Medyo ang bansa natin talaga ay bugbog na bugbog na sa fake news.’ Firstly, the use of the term ‘fake news’ is not helpful. As one veteran reporter bluntly puts it: “If it is news, it isn’t fake. And if it’s false then, it cannot be news.”   Obviously, the term ‘fake news’ is an oxymoron and thus, inappropriate for use in problem-solving discussions.

Disinformation is often treated, particularly by government, as merely a problem of false content circulating online. Under this approach, the task appears straightforward: identify falsehoods, remove them, punish those responsible and prevent further circulation. But this misunderstands contemporary disinformation. The deeper problem is the process through which falsehood is deliberately produced, disseminated, amplified, and monetized.

A more effective approach is to thoroughly understand disinformation through a set of interrelated variables within the information ecosystem: purveyors, digital platforms, government, civil society and ordinary users. Each contributes either to the production and persistence of disinformation or to the protection of the information ecosystem.

First, purveyors of disinformation include individuals, organisations, political actors, commercial enterprises and networks that deliberately create or distribute deceptive information. Regulation should therefore focus not simply on individual pieces of false content but on deliberate deception, coordinated manipulation and the financing structures and incentives that sustain disinformation operations.

Second, digital platforms such as Facebook, X, TikTok and YouTube have become critical infrastructure for public communication. This provides a basis for a digital duty of care. Such a duty should not require platforms to determine the truth of every statement or become instruments of government censorship. Rather, platforms should bear responsibilities proportionate to their power and social significance.

Third, government has a democratic responsibility to protect citizens and institutions from serious forms of manipulation that may undermine meaningful participation in democratic life. But this responsibility creates a corresponding danger: suppression of legitimate expression. Government must therefore protect the information ecosystem while remaining constrained by constitutional principles, particularly legality, necessity and proportionality.

Fourth, civil society remains essential to maintaining information integrity. Traditional media once performed an important gatekeeping function through editors, journalists and professional standards. Digital communication has weakened that function by allowing almost anyone to publish instantly to potentially enormous audiences. This makes independent journalism, investigation and verification more important, not less.

Fifth, netizens possess communicative power previously concentrated largely in governments, media organisations and wealthy institutions. Freedom of expression protects their participation in public debate, but that power also carries civic responsibilities. This does not mean imposing liability for every mistake, unpopular opinion, satire or disagreement. The responsibility arises where users knowingly participate in circulating harmful deception or deliberately contribute to hatred, division or social harm.

While it is very easy to see disinformation as merely a problem of false content circulating in the information ecosystem, the organized process through which falsehood is deliberately produced cannot be ignored. How technology is used to disseminate and amplified, how the whole operation is monetized and converted into political, economic or social harm are factors that cannot be overlooked.

The entire disinformation enterprise involves several moving parts. As demonstrated here, interconnected variables are at play here. Establishing a regulatory framework to keep the digital space safe and secure must necessarily account for these actors and institutions and the dynamics between them. But this requires commonsense, first and foremost.