Dirty election tricks may have reached Facebook

Campaign-related dirty tricks may have reached Facebook, the social networking site that has more than 11 million users in the Philippines. Over the weekend, the fan page of Liberal Party standard bearer Noynoy Aquino III was reportedly hacked by the camps of his rivals, an attack that shaved off some 16,000 fans from a base of 1.3 million fans. During the same period, the page’s increase in number of new fans plummeted as well.

Image from technology blog MeNoob.com. Every week, Facebook provides fan page administrators statistics and updates. “Our Official Facebook Fan Page has been hacked, and supporters are maliciously being unsubscribed by the hacker. We are temporarily shutting it down. Rest assured, our [administrators] are working 24/7 to restore its normal operations," read the status update by the page’s administrators before it was taken down temporarily. In a phone interview with GMANews.TV, a member of Aquino’s new media team said that on Sunday morning, they noticed that their number of fans dwindled, ironically, a day after they released an online ad inviting Facebook users to sign up as the senator’s fans. “It was about 2 a.m. last Sunday when we noted the high rate of unsubscription. It was strange because we get an average of 30,000 new users a day and because we put up an ad 24 hours before that," said Vicente Romano III. He added he and 13 other fan page administrators decided to “un-publish" the page to prevent more fans from being deleted. Aquino’s page had about 1.3 million fans before the administrators deactivated the page. As of Wednesday, the fan page remained offline as administrators attempt to solve the so-called mystery of the missing fans. “We already contacted Facebook, but unfortunately, Facebook is very slow in responding," he said. As of posting time, GMANews.TV is also trying to reach Facebook site administrators to shed light on the matter. Romano cited two reasons for the “missing" Facebook fans. “There could have been a security breach by Sen. Aquino’s rival camps. But there could also be a virus or a glitch because of Facebook’s new features," he said. Last week, the social networking site introduced a new feature where users can ‘like’ a certain page instead of clicking “become a fan of." Yet even if no hacking occurred, Romano and his team are doing their best to restore the page and to determine what went wrong. “Our fans monitor the page daily. They interact with other fans, too, so it’s a big thing for us to bring the page back immediately," he said. - RJAB Jr./JV, GMANews.TV