Manila: Sen. Raffy Tulfo on Wednesday urged officials of Meta Platforms Inc. to swiftly remove a 'deepfake' Facebook post targeting President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. During a Senate Committee on Public Information and Mass Media hearing on fake news, Tulfo highlighted that the manipulated content, reportedly posted on February 2, remained accessible more than a week later despite being reported to the platform.

According to Philippines News Agency, Tulfo expressed his frustration to Meta Public Policy Head for Indonesia and the Philippines, Berni Moestafa, stating, 'Our President is being disrespected blatantly and you're not doing anything about it and you said you're still processing it. Come on, take it down!' Moestafa replied that the content had been removed based on the latest information he received, but he acknowledged that similar materials could still be circulating under different accounts.

Moestafa assured the committee that the platform would re-evaluate the situation to confirm whether the post was indeed taken down and noted the platform's ability to expand action to identical or related misinformation once a violating post is removed. However, Tulfo insisted that the post was still visible during the hearing and demanded its immediate removal.

Meta Philippines Public Policy Head Gio Tiongson informed the committee that the content had been reported through the government reporting channel by the Department of Information and Communications Technology, and the identified links were taken down. Tiongson added that the company would verify if the same content had been reposted elsewhere and requested the specific link for immediate review.

'May we ask po for the link and we'll immediately take it down,' Tiongson said. The hearing is part of the Senate's broader review of fake news and deepfake content online. Lawmakers emphasized that the proposed anti-fake news legislation is among the priority measures endorsed by Marcos and the Legislative-Executive Development Advisory Council.