By Cliff Potts, CSO, and Editor-in-Chief of WPS News

Baybay City, Leyte, Philippines — February 4, 2026

For years, social media platforms told Filipinos the same story: post good content, build an audience, and earn income. Many people believed this promise. They invested time, effort, and trust. On X, that promise has largely failed to reach the Philippines.

This essay begins a series on bad platform business practices and how they affect Filipino users, creators, journalists, and small businesses. The focus is not on personalities or politics. It is about how the platform works in practice — and who benefits from it.

A Global Platform With Unequal Results

The Philippines is one of the most active social media countries in the world. Filipinos spend long hours online, share news quickly, and engage across borders. English fluency and mobile access make participation easy.

But participation is not the same as opportunity.

While users in wealthier countries can turn attention into steady income, Filipino users often cannot. The platform treats the Philippines as a source of activity, not as a market worth investing in. This creates a gap between effort and reward.

Visibility Without Real Income

On X, users can still reach large audiences. Posts can go viral. Replies can travel far. But reach alone does not pay bills.

Most income tools on the platform are hard to access from the Philippines. Payment systems, thresholds, and eligibility rules favor users in richer countries. Even when Filipino creators gain attention, that attention rarely turns into stable income.

This is not an accident. It is how the system is designed.

Unclear Rules Create Risk

Small businesses and journalists need stable systems. They need to know that today’s effort will still matter tomorrow. On X, visibility can drop overnight without explanation. Accounts lose reach. Engagement falls. There is no clear appeal process.

For Filipino users, this is a serious problem. Many rely on online income to support families. When rules change without warning, the risk is pushed onto users who can least afford it.

Unstable systems are bad for business. They drive people away instead of helping them grow.

Central Control, Local Cost

Decisions about X are made far from the Philippines. Local users have little say in platform changes. When problems appear, there is no regional accountability.

The cost, however, is local. Lost reach, lost income, and lost trust are felt by Filipino users, not by the platform owners. This kind of imbalance looks less like a partnership and more like extraction.

Digital platforms may be global, but their impacts are not evenly shared.

Why This Series Matters

This essay is the first step in documenting how platform business choices shape real lives in the Philippines. Over time, this series will show patterns, not just single problems. It will also allow readers to compare different platform models and see which ones actually support users.

A platform that works only for a few countries is not truly global.
That matters — especially for the Philippines.

For more social commentary, please see Occupy 2.5 at https://Occupy25.com

This essay will be archived in the WPS News Archives at Amazon.

References (APA)

Meta Platforms, Inc. (2023). Transparency report. https://transparency.fb.com

Musk, E. (2022). Twitter acquisition statement. https://www.sec.gov

Reuters. (2023). Advertisers cut spending on X amid uncertainty. https://www.reuters.com

Statista. (2024). Social media usage in the Philippines. https://www.statista.com

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