Crimson-tagging – which falsely manufacturers reputable activists as terrorists – is used to silence land and environmental defenders on-line and in actual life
What’s red-tagging?
Crimson-tagging is a apply that connects on-line and real-world harms, the place people or teams (usually progressive political activists or land and environmental defenders) are labelled as communists, terrorists or subversives with insufficient proof.
In some political contexts, this will result in critical penalties, together with additional harassment, threats, violence and even extrajudicial killings. Main social media platforms usually fail to forestall the disinformation’s unfold.
The time period red-tagging is mostly used within the context of The Philippines. The apply surged through the government-led crackdown on activists below President Rodrigo Duterte and has intensified additional below present president Ferdinand Marcos Jr.
However the time period’s origins return additional than the Duterte authorities. Within the late Forties, through the McCarthy period within the USA, there are references in US congressional hearings to attainable communist sympathisers receiving a “crimson tag”. Merriam-Webster lists the primary use of its synonym, “red-baiting”, in 1927.
Each Amnesty Worldwide and World Witness have reported extensively on the apply, highlighting its use by state actors and different highly effective entities to silence dissent and goal human rights defenders.
Within the Philippines, the media outlet Rappler, in addition to native civil society organisations comparable to Kalikasan PNE and Karapatan, have documented its use for years.
Within the first world survey of land and environmental defenders concerning the digital threats they face, revealed by World Witness in 2025, 9 out of the ten Filipino defenders surveyed mentioned they’d been abused on-line due to their political affiliations.
How do digital threats and local weather motion intersect?
Digital threats, comparable to disinformation campaigns and on-line harassment (usually spearheaded by inauthentic accounts), can considerably undermine local weather motion by pushing environmental activists and defenders out of on-line conversations.
These on-line harms may even result in criminalisation, bodily assaults and different real-life penalties. When on-line harassment spills over into the actual world, it endangers activists and hinders their work.
Some land and environmental defenders informed World Witness that on-line harassment and threats had had made them really feel discouraged. Others reported a lack of productiveness from on-line assaults. One other survey of local weather scientists discovered that harassment had made many much less prone to talk about local weather change on-line.
The hyperlink between red-tagging and defending the atmosphere
Crimson-tagging is ceaselessly used towards land and environmental defenders who oppose tasks that harm the atmosphere, comparable to mining operations, deforestation and large-scale infrastructure tasks.
By falsely associating these defenders with designated terrorist teams (most notably the New Individuals’s Military in The Philippines), red-tagging goals to delegitimise their trigger and silence their opposition.
The case of Jad Tamano mentioned in The Philippines illustrates this hazard. These younger environmental activists had been allegedly kidnapped by the army, who reportedly tried to solicit a confession from them to being communist rebels.
The 2 ladies had been working with fishing communities against the Manila Bay reclamation venture – the controversial building of a mega airport that has displaced over 700 households and triggered irreversible harm to the endangered biodiversity hotspot.
Human rights teams have condemned Castro and Tamano’s therapy as a case of obvious state-sponsored abduction and red-tagging.
Crimson-tagging targets Indigenous Peoples in The Philippines
Indigenous Peoples in The Philippines are amongst these weak to red-tagging as retribution for his or her resistance to extractive industries. They’re usually on the forefront of defending their ancestral lands from damaging mining and hydropower actions.
The militarisation of mining in Indigenous territories – the place the army have killed, harassed and displaced communities to make method for brand spanking new important mineral mining tenements – additional exacerbates this challenge, making a local weather of concern and intimidation.
Too usually, Indigenous defenders who resist dropping their house to land grabs discover themselves denounced with trumped up terrorism costs.
Crimson-tagging not solely endangers the lives and security of environmental defenders but in addition undermines essential efforts to deal with local weather change and shield the atmosphere.
Within the Philippines, almost half of Indigenous Peoples’ demarcated ancestral territories overlap with biodiversity hotspots. Indigenous Peoples’ conventional stewardship of the land has been repeatedly credited as an important defence towards environmental destruction – the mining business’s risk to Indigenous communities, then, is disastrous for the atmosphere too.
By silencing those that converse out towards damaging and extractive practices, red-tagging permits environmental harm to proceed unchecked.
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Reducing sources to content material moderation groups is a selection
Crimson-tagging is simply one of many digital threats that defenders face. A survey of defenders performed by World Witness discovered that the 4 on-line platforms the place such threats mostly happen are both owned by Meta or X.
It’s worrying to see that lately each corporations have minimize down their belief and security groups and diminished their use of human content material moderators globally.
Mere weeks earlier than Donald Trump was inaugurated for a second time periodMeta additionally modified its neighborhood pointers to extend the edge of what would represent hate speech on-line – below the banner of “get(ting) again to our roots round free expression,” as CEO Mark Zuckerberg mentioned in a video assertion.
These are deliberate selections with probably grave penalties for the free speech of those that converse out about environmental destruction.
Each Meta and X have it inside their energy to assist repair this downside. This is able to not solely profit customers most in danger, like defenders and the local weather motion general, but in addition assist to enhance the expertise on-line for on a regular basis customers.
For extra particulars about how social media corporations responded to our survey of land and environmental defenders, learn the total report.
