Censorship: You’re Doing It Right

The ‘traditional’ or ‘conservative’ student political party in the University of the Philippines-Diliman Campus released a video last December 31 which purportedly shows its achievements. As the video slowly scored views, it also began to accumulate ‘dis-likes’ and comments which dismiss the video as ‘early electioneering’, and the party’s principles in general.

And when the views, comments, and dislikes began to ‘spike’ in the last 24 hours, whoever was managing the party’s official YouTube account went on ‘red alert’:

1. They deleted all the comments.

2. They moderated the comment section. Meaning, all future comments will have to be approved by them.

3. But the dis-likes kept coming.

4. They ‘hid’ the part which shows how many likes and dislikes the video received.

5. But we could still see the likes and dislikes by clicking a buton.

6. So they disabled the feature allowing ‘likes’ and ‘dislikes’.

Steps 1-6 happened in the span of less than 30 minutes.

But thankfully, we remembered to take screenshots of the top comments, at least. R.I.P Truth. You will be sorely missed by the conservative party.

This incident comes at the heels of another event in which the Diliman conservative party (and its equivalents in other UP campuses) accused the UP Student Regent of, GUESS WHAT, Internet censorship. They even went as far as to compare the student leader with the infamous ‘Great (Fire) Wall of China’.

(From the fanpage of Bigkis-UP Manila)

The saying Kapag nagturo ka ng isang daliri, apat ang magtuturo pabalik sayo holds true today.

And this is not the first time this party has committed censorship.

During the 2011 student council elections in UP Diliman, the conservative party included in its General Plan of Action (GPOA) a proposal to ‘restructure’ independent student alliances such as Youth for Earth, Salinlahi (composed of provincial and regional organizations in Diliman), and UNA (Ugnayan ng Nagkakaisang Artista). If you will look for the post where the comments below were posted, you will not find it anywhere in the party’s Facebook page. In other words: OMG! They deleted an entire Note. It’s that bad.

And ask any Diliman student you know that belongs to the ‘militant’ party. I will be willing to treat you to a free lunch if you find any such student who hasn’t been banned from the conservative party’s Facebook page. The latter clear do not entertain any exchange in which they cannot ensure that they will come out as the good guys.

What makes this incident really ridiculous  is the fact that ‘Internet censorship’ goes against some of the principles which the conservative party purportedly advocates.

So does this mean that YouTube and Facebook users are not ‘people’, and hence, not deserving of “the people’s sovereign right to information”? Or does the “Freedom of Information” apply only to the government, and not to this party?

Tsktsk.

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