Unsolicited notes on the government’s draft social media policy

The 10-page draft memorandum released by the Presidential Communications Operations Office (PCOO) in time for a consultation scheduled at UP Diliman tomorrow (February 23) is essentially an internal memorandum that aims to establish a social media office under the PCOO; to provide guidance to government agencies on the use of social media; and to provide a system of accreditation to social media publishers/users, bloggers and webmasters (even if the latter is not included in the definition of terms; I should also interject that there is a problem with the definition of publisher, user and blogger in the draft memorandum).

Perhaps the most significant part of the memorandum may be found in pages 9 and 10 on the issue of accreditation. Please note that one of the responsibilities of accredited social media publishers/users, bloggers and webmasters is to “Post, share, and disseminate […] the press releases and other news information issued by the PCOO”. (PCOO, 2017, p. 9)

This essentially reduces the accredited ones to mere mouthpieces of the PCOO. And when analyzed in the context of one of the guidelines that they should “not use language that is offensive, inflammatory, or provocative” (PCOO, 2017, p. 7), it becomes clear that contrary views are unacceptable lest they be misinterpreted as provocative.

We should remember that PCOO Secretary Martin Andanar explicitly said that social media and blogging are phenomena “that we have to embrace, at the same time we also have to control” (“PCOO to hold all media gathering”, n. d., para. 11). Clearly, a supposedly harmless gesture of voluntary accreditation becomes a scheming attempt to control online content.

REFERENCES

PCOO to hold all media gathering on social media, 20 Feb. 2017. (n. d.). Retrieved from http://pcoo.gov.ph/pcoo-to-hold-all-media-gathering-social-media-20-feb-2017/

PCOO. (2017, February 21). PCOO social media policy [working draft memorandum].

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