An overseas Filipino worker (OFW) named Orion Perez Dumdum, who had been working in Singapore for several years, recently stirred up a storm on social media by initiating a contentious “report-takedowns” contest.

The contest involves encouraging his Facebook friends and fellow Filipinos to cyber-bully and maliciously report a Singaporean national named Serene Ho with whom he simply disagrees.

Dumdum took to his public Facebook profile to announce his controversial contest. According to his post, he is determined to reward the individuals who manage to get the most “report-takedowns” of the Singaporean national he holds a grudge against.

The rewards are as follows: P10,000 for the first place, P7,000 for the second place, and P3,000 for the third place. The contest is scheduled to end on August 31, 2023, and winners will receive their payments via GCash or bank transfer.

What adds to the concerning nature of this contest is the overwhelming support and encouragement Dumdum has received from his Facebook friends. What makes it more bizarre is the fact that some of these friends have dubious profiles, raising questions about their intentions and motives. Their support for incentivizing online harassment and cyber-bullying has sparked outrage among many social media users.

Despite Dumdum’s enthusiasm in initiating the contest, there is a glaring omission in his “mechanism” for the participants. Dumdum has not specified how his friends or other participants should prove the number of “report-takedowns” they have successfully executed. This raises doubts about the transparency and legitimacy of the contest, as there is no clear way to verify the claimed results.

Amidst the controversial contest, an irony has surfaced within Dumdum’s own post. He encourages his friends and followers to utilize second or alternative accounts for cyber-bullying and malicious reporting, directly violating Facebook’s rules. The platform strictly prohibits the use of alternate or dummy accounts for such purposes, making Dumdum’s stance somewhat hypocritical.

Dumdum’s hypocritical and alarming contest brought Facebook’s “Bullying and Harassment” Policy into the spotlight. The policy emphasizes that context and intent matter, and while the platform allows content that condemns or draws attention to bullying and harassment, it also requires self-reporting in certain instances. This helps the platform better understand the impact on the person targeted by such behavior.