Baravilala says Govt has never purchased social media 'likes' directly or indirectly through contracted entities

The Acting Permanent Secretary for Communications Tupoutua’h Baravilala says the Fijian Government has never purchased social media “likes” directly or indirectly through contracted entities.

She made this comment in relation to claims by National Federation Party Leader Professor Biman Prasad that the Government buys fake likes to add to its facebook posts, to pretend that it is popular.

In a statement, Baravilala says they instead seek engagement from the hundreds of thousands of Fijians who follow their pages on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn.

She further says social media platforms, specifically Facebook, are well-known and documented to be littered with fake profiles.

Baravilala highlighted that there have been instances of fake profiles targeting Government social media assets, such as the Fijian Government Facebook Page adding that these fake profiles and other bad actors have been found to harass genuine users, disseminate misleading information, run outright scams attempting to inflict financial and material harm on the Fijian people, and violate the spirit of the Public Order Act, which prohibits malicious acts, incitement to violence and disobedience, racial antagonism, and the sabotaging of the economy or financial integrity of Fiji.

She says when these violations occur, these profiles are subsequently blocked.

Baravilala adds the Department of Information did register a recent spike in unusual engagement from suspicious profiles targeting the Fijian Government Facebook page and many of these profiles have been identified and blocked to prioritise engagement from genuine users.

While responding to Baravilala, Professor Prasad says government is denying that they are paying for likes but they are paying their social media administrators.

He says the question they want to ask is whether the government is paying social media firms to run the government pages and if they are, then they must be buying likes.

He says people have told them that comments which are not inciteful or breach of Public Order Act but which are simply against government, are being deleted.

In a statement Professor Prasad says the fake facebook likes can be purchased on the internet from so-called ‘like farms’.

He says like farms are online businesses who generate facebook profiles and these profiles can be programmed to like others’ posts.

Professor Prasad says this costs money and claims that our government is paying for this – or it is paying someone to arrange this.

He also says next, there are dozens of fake profiles – people who do not exist but are created for facebook purposes – to comment favourably on government posts or to attack opposition parties.

The NFP Leader says facebook posts can be liked and commented on and claims if there are negative comments on the government’s facebook pages, the government deletes them and blocks the commentators.

Professor Prasad says at least two well-known commentators have publicly exposed the practice adding the Government has said nothing, it has stayed very quiet.

He further says the government puts announcements on its Fijian Government Facebook page and these are political “puff pieces” intended to show FijiFirst Party politicians in a good light.

Professor Prasad says this is abuse of office adding that public resources should be used to give Fiji’s people the information they need.

He adds instead they are being used to glorify one set of politicians.

Professor Prasad says we cannot fix our roads, our hospitals are in a dire state, poverty is increasing but the FijiFirst Government can spend money to play around on social media to pretend that it is popular.

He says when in government, they will fully investigate the FijiFirst Party’s blatant politicking with public resources.

He says all those responsible for this disgraceful abuse of public money will be held to account.

Naveel