Event Summary
On 5-6 December 2025, Facebook accounts of several media organizations, fact-checkers, and commentators were simultaneously taken down: Rappler, FTTM, Bilyonaryo News Channel, Atty. Jesus Falcis, and Alfred Marc de Guzman. All these 5 accounts were taken down for identical “trademark infringement claims” from a single complainant named “Sebastian Rafael Velazquez Beaulieu” from a group called “Los Iracundos” using the same email for all complaints. These pages, including the award-winning online news site ‘Rappler’ founded by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Maria Ressa, are known to dispel disinformation and promote critical discourse that hold powerful personalities and institutions to account.
Online content censorship in the form of post or account takedowns is not a new form of restricting civil society engagement. In March 2025, META took down the page and personal accounts of ACT Teachers Partylist France Castro along with other pages of progressive groups. During this period, the Party List was active in pursuing Impeachment allegations against VP Sara Duterte. While there have been preceding cyber-attacks against media organizations, fact-checkers, and commentators, none achieved the current scale of causing the shut down of 5 reputable pages at once. The attack was coordinated given the uncovered single complainant, group, and email.
While the accounts were all restored, netizens lament how the current systems Meta has in place, its automated algorithm and use of AI in initially responding to trademark infringement claims, are vulnerable to insidious and unauthentic reporting to perpetrate cyber-censorship. The role of social media companies in mitigating and responding to cyber-attacks is also put on the spotlight. Netizens are behooved to be more intentional in their engagement with social media companies and to demand an enabling environment for activism and dissent in online spaces.