Terrible damage
Preda social workers and therapists see daily the terrible damage inflicted on young victims of sexual abuse by people influenced by corrupting child-abuse images on social media platforms that are supported by telecommunications companies (telcos).
These firms and internet service providers (ISPs) have still not installed state-of-the-art blocking software as the law demands. The National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) is even more powerless to control the telcos and seems compromised.
Even President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., who was shocked by the horrific and notorious child abuse images on social media, is apparently powerless to make the telcos obey the law. They are a power unto themselves and seem to be above the law, making the Philippines a hub for international child abuse images to be accessed by anyone — including children — at any time, from anywhere.
We know this because sex offenders as young as 13 admitted to viewing child abuse images on the internet — which, again, were allowed to spread by the ISPs and telcos — with them saying these drove them to rape girls as young as six.
Preda’s social workers and therapists are helping the victims, while the abusers are admitting how they were influenced by easily accessible sex videos proliferating on the internet.
Several countries have passed laws banning children 16 and younger from accessing social media platforms, including TikTok, Instagram, Facebook and YouTube, because of harmful content found in them, including explicit images of sexual abuse and exploitation. Among these countries are Australia, France, Malaysia, Indonesia, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, and Brazil.
More countries are following suit, and our Congress is debating proposed laws banning minors from social media, which telcos and the American Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines oppose.
Several groups are also against a total ban and advocate for targeted regulation, digital literacy, and platform accountability. However, the true answer is to strictly implement the law to control the telcos and ISPs.
The telcos are not obeying the law and are allegedly in cahoots with the NTC. That alleged blatant corruption is the root of the problem and the reason children are being sexually abused and trafficked online, and are viewing child sex abuse images and videos online.
The laws regulating the internet and mandating blocking software to stop child sexual abuse are RA 9775, or the Anti-Child Pornography Act of 2009, and RA 11930, or the Anti-Online Sexual Abuse or Exploitation of Children and Anti-Child Sexual Abuse or Exploitation Materials Act. These are being violated, and that is why new, tougher legislation is being proposed.
There is no greater need today than such a social media ban to wake up the telcos and the government to protect our children and teach them to protect themselves from such dangerous content and use the internet only for good./PN
