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Herbie Gomez

I COULDN’T help but shake my head in disbelief as I was reading a Mindanews report about how an official of the Civil Service Commission (CSC) warned government officials and workers against the use of social media as a means of expression.

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Now, we are told, that even the mere act of clicking the “Like” button on Facebook could make a government employee susceptible to charges of violating laws on partisanship. In other words, the poor worker could lose his job because of “Like,” according to Annabelle Roselle, the director of the CSC in Region 11.

Roselle says that wearing of pins, ballers, and shirts that bear the names of candidates, or sharing, commenting, and liking posts on social media would be seen as engaging in partisan political activities by the Commission or a violation of Section 2.4b of Article 4 of the Constitution that provides that “no officer or employee in the civil service shall engage, directly or indirectly, in any electioneering or partisan political campaign.” She also cites the Omnibus Election Code that prohibits government officials and employees from directly and indirectly supporting candidates.

And that’s supposed to stop a good number of netizens from clicking “Like”?

There is an ocean of difference between clicking the “Like” button and using government manpower and resources, including public funds, for partisan political activities.

I am not sure how any lawyer could ever prove in court that a person actually clicked that button. You see, it could have been clicked by anyone–a friend or enemy of the clumsy Facebook user who recklessly left the Internet café without logging out, a smartphone snatcher or thief, a kid toying with the parent’s tablet or even a cat who chased, and caught a mouse on the keyboard while its master was in the toilet.

We all know that “Like” doesn’t always mean like. Someone posts an announcement about how his loved one got crushed to death by a 10-wheeler, and hundreds clicked “Like.” Did his Facebook friends really like the gory death?

Or what about the man in a motorcycle accident who took a selfie in the ICU to show how his nosedive flattened his face? Did over a thousand people who saw his selfie really like his new face because they clicked “Like”?

Or what about the woman who bashes and sues her husband, and announces to the whole world, with all the ugly details, that she decided to end a six-month marriage like it’s the business of everyone on Facebook? 970 “Likes.”

Or what about the photo of the old, moneyed, bald, beer-bellied, BMW-driving loudmouth of a D.O.M. surrounded by two-piece bikini-clad ladies young enough to be his grandchildren? Super “Like”? The post had 4,000+ “Likes” that actually translate to “Super Yucky.”

Apart from cowardice, the reason why masked pesky trolls with neither balls nor brains are taking over social media is because of cockeyed interpretations of rules and laws like the ones just cited by the CSC director.

Social media will be social media where the good, the bad, and the ugly meet. Allow it to be a marketplace of and a battlefield for ideas. It can get really ugly at times but, hey, that’s exactly how the world–and democracy–works. Only an intelligent idea can kill a stupid idea.

We cannot allow government to tell people what to “like” or what not to “like.” If we do, we might wake up one day seeing government deciding which sites we can and cannot access.

Instead of warning “likers,” what the Civil Service Commission should be doing is helping Congress rationalize laws that were passed long before the idea of Facebook crossed the mind of Mark Zuckerberg.

Pastilan.

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