ON JUNE 22, 2026, something shocking shattered the peace at San Jose National High School in Tacloban City.
At around 9:13 a.m. that day, two young boys, ages 14 and 15, opened fire on campus. The horrifying attack claimed the lives of three students and left 20 others injured.
The teenage shooters were believed to have been influenced by violent content on the internet.
Social media platforms are not public services. They are moneymaking machines owned by moguls whose sole desire and purpose in life, it seems, is to make billions of dollars and further enrich themselves, never mind the consequences.
Internet service providers (ISPs) use engagement-driven algorithms designed to lure young audiences and make them addicted to watching harmful content.
Algorithms are computer instructions like “digital robots” that gather information about you and know your likes and dislikes, your habits, and what you search online. Then they track you and know what and how long you watch a video. It combines your viewing data with personal information — age, device type, location — to predict what you want to see next, or not.
They will send you unwanted, sensational and extreme content showing violence, pornography, child abuse, and even violent extremism, like what those two Tacloban boys imitated. ISPs have done little to block such evil and damaging content despite Philippine law demanding them to do so.
An estimated 500,000 Filipino children — or about one in 100 in the country — were trafficked to produce new child sexual exploitation material or subjected to livestreamed abuse in a single year. Assessments from the United Nations Children’s Fund say that up to two million internet-using children aged 12 to 17 have experienced some form of online sexual abuse or exploitation.
Offshore sex offenders pay as little as $15 to $25 a session. According to the Philippine Anti-Money Laundering Council, transactions originating from the United States trigger the largest volume of suspicious financial reports related to the online sexual abuse or exploitation of children.
The Philippine law is strict but largely ignored. Republic Act 11930, or the Anti-Online Sexual Abuse or Exploitation of Children and Anti-Child Sexual Abuse or Exploitation Materials Act, instructs telecommunications companies to install state-of-the-art blocking software, but they don’t. Corrupt officials take bribes to ignore the violations of the law. These intrusions into the life of users can cause severe psychological harm in children, including rising rates of anxiety, depression and sleep deprivation. These can also drive young people to violent actions.
Banning young people from social media is like stopping a bird from flying. Besides, there are fundamental rights to be respected, like those of free speech and freedom of expression, which good, positive and educational platforms provide and give access to educational material.
Besides, smart young people nowadays can use virtual private networks, which shield them from detection when using the internet to access certain websites. Such a ban would prevent young people from accessing help sites. It would also entice children to visit restricted sites and become all the more vulnerable and subject to online sexual abuse, grooming and blackmail.
It is the providers and enablers of the dangerous material online that must be curbed more.
Restrictions for children from accessing certain sites are welcome; they can help save children from abuse. More importantly, those sites should be identified and blocked. (To be continued)/PN
