Julia Christine Botin

Halalan Threat Monitoring Center to fight 'fake news'

Article (news)

Jekki Pascual

ABS-CBN News

MANILA — The Commission on Elections-led Task Force KKK sa Halalan has formally opened its Threat Monitoring Center on Friday, a few days ahead of the 2025 midterm polls.Task Force KKK, which stands for Katotohanan, Katapatan, Katarungan, aims to push for truthful, honest and fair polls this coming Monday, May 12, 2025.The Threat Monitoring Center is an inter-agency center with employees from Comelec, Department of Information and Communications Technology, Cybercrime Investigation and Coordinating Center, Philippine National Police- Anti-Cybercrime Group, National Bureau of Investigation, and the National Intelligence Coordinating Agency. This is also supported by various election watchdogs as well as social media platforms like Meta for Facebook, TikTok, Google, and X formerly Twitter.They will monitor and verify online posts and social media messages that could violate election laws. Social media companies vowed to take down posts if proven that these have &quot;fake news&quot; content.Presidential Communications Office Secretary Jay Ruiz said the center will be a big help to fight misinformation and disinformation during and even after the elections on Monday.“We now have the plague of disinformation particularly thorugh fake accounts, bots, and deceptive online practice…. Marami malilinlang, maraming maloloko. Ito po ang pineprevent natin dahil dito sa KKK,” Ruiz said.Ruiz urged social media platforms to comply and to respond quickly since a single fake news can affect the public.“Pakiusap namin sa mga platform baka naman pwede pag gobyerno na nagsabing fake news ang post na ito, pinapakiusapan namin na sana sumunod sila sa pag take down ng mga maling balita,” he added.Yves Gonzalez, Google’s Government Affairs and Public Policy head, said “Meron po tayong madaling ma-takedown, meron din po tayo na kailangan additional time to verify.”The center will run for a month but there are plans to do the same for the upcoming Barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan elections and the Bangsamoro polls.

Presidential Communications Office Secretary Jay Ruiz said the center will be a big help to fight misinformation and disinformation during and even after the elections on Monday

Presidential Communications Office Secretary Jay Ruiz said the center will be a big help to fight misinformation and disinformation during and even after the elections on Monday