Hundreds of accounts supporting Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos have been suspended on Twitter

MANILA, Philippines (Reuters) – Twitter (TWTR.N) announced on Friday that hundreds of accounts endorsing Philippines presidential election candidate Ferdinand Marcos Jr had been suspended for violating spam and manipulation rules.

Marcos, 64, the son of the late dictator who was deposed in a 1986 “people power” revolution, has emerged as the front-runner for the May election.

In deciding to suspend more than 300 accounts and hashtags, Twitter said it employed both human assessment and technology, and that its investigations were still ongoing.

“We continue to be cautious about detecting and removing suspected election-related information campaigns,” a Twitter spokeswoman stated.

Vic Rodriguez, Marcos’ chief of staff, praised Twitter for their efforts but cautioned that not all of the accounts belonged to Marcos supporters.

In a statement, he said, “We thank Twitter for keeping a close eye on platform manipulation, spam, and other attempts to damage the public debate.”

In the previous three decades, the Marcos family has served as senators, lower house politicians, and province governors, making them one of the wealthiest and most powerful forces in Philippine politics.

Though Marcos Jr., sometimes known as “Bongbong,” has significant opponents in the political establishment, he has a large following of Filipinos who utilise social media extensively at home and abroad.

According to some experts, this use has made political discourse in the Philippines vulnerable to social media manipulation.

On Monday, Twitter said that the Philippines, Brazil, and Spain would be added to a test tool that allows users to identify inaccurate content.

The news site Rappler said this week that Marcos supporters were attempting to take control of Twitter by creating accounts in only a few months. The majority of the 300 accounts were taken down earlier as part of normal procedures, according to Twitter.

Unless accounts were inauthentic, automated, or paid for, Twitter said publishing political content or organising people to do so via hashtags was within its rules, but it saw “no clear evidence” of that.