FACEBOOK LET MY GOVERNMENT TARGET ME
BUT THE SOCIAL-MEDIA GIANT COULD YET FULFILL ITS ORIGINAL PROMISE
MY REPUTATION AND PEACE OF MIND WERE demolished by information operations on Facebook. It’s a cautionary tale for the U.S.
I run Rappler, an online news site in the Philippines. In my country, Facebook essentially is the Internet, thanks to subsidies from telecommunications companies that let people avoid data charges while on the site. But it has also made the Philippines a showcase for the destruction Facebook can enable.
The attacks against me and Rappler began appearing on Facebook in the summer of 2016. A year later President Rodrigo Duterte was repeating them in his State of
