The past few months have been busy for reporters covering the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) and its attached agencies. Telegram, Roblox, Reddit, and Discord have all been called out over reports of illegal activity or risks to children.
Then came the school shootings. Officials started asking what young people might be seeing in video games and online communities. Of course, those questions should be investigated. But as of this writing, no public finding has shown that a particular platform caused any of the attacks. We cannot jump from suspicion to conclusion just because what happened was frightening.
Earlier this year, there were calls to ban Telegram. Roblox was given a deadline to meet with authorities. This week, the Cybercrime Investigation and Coordinating Center (CICC) gave Reddit and Discord 24 hours to set up local representation or name someone the government could contact.
I understand why the agencies want someone to answer their calls. If a child is being groomed or exploited online, an unanswered email to a company overseas is unacceptable. These platforms should be made to act. But why does the threat of a ban keep coming up so quickly?
A ban sounds decisive. But what happens after the announcement? Does it identify the person abusing a child? Does it save the messages investigators need as evidence? Does it tell parents where to ask for help? Someone intent on causing harm can move to another app. Everyone else who uses the platform for work, school, games, or keeping in touch loses access.
The confusion over Discord shows why clear communication matters. After Reddit and Discord contacted the CICC, the agency released a media advisory saying both would get a reprieve. Then people started posting that they could no longer access Discord. The CICC later issued a “clarification” saying the extension applied to Reddit. An official also confirmed that a request to block Discord had been sent to the National Telecommunications Commission.
If Reddit and Discord gave different answers and got different treatment, why wasn’t that clear in the first statement?
Last week, the DICT also had to clarify what it said about Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and a House hearing. It then told the media to rely on official channels. Reporters were relying on an official channel. If a government statement is wrong, say what was wrong and correct it. That should not be too much to ask, especially when the issue is children’s safety.
So what else can the agencies do? And this is coming from someone who is on the sidelines but did some research. There is no attempt on my part to call myself an expert even if I have been writing about online sexual abuse and exploitation of children (OSAEC) since 2018.
First, make sure there is someone at each platform who will pick up the phone, so to speak. A company does not need to open an office overnight to put a team in charge of urgent requests from Philippine authorities. Tell the public which agency sends those requests, what details it needs, and how long the platform has to respond. Give parents and schools a clear place to report abuse, too. They should not have to guess whether their report reached anyone.
Then deal with the account, group, image, or message involved. Give the platform enough information to find it, act on it, and keep the evidence investigators need. If the evidence disappears, it becomes harder to build a case against the person responsible. Republic Act No. 11930 already requires internet platforms to preserve specified information and remove identified child sexual abuse material after proper notice. We should know when agencies use these powers and whether platforms respond.
I also want to know whether the safety features on these apps actually work for children here. Can a stranger send a child a private message? Is reporting a suspicious account simple enough for a young person to do? Can a parent understand the controls without going through pages of instructions? If someone reports grooming in Filipino or another local language, does a person who understands it review the report? These seem like better questions than whether a company can rent an office within 24 hours.
Other countries have approaches we can learn from. In Australia, children and parents can report certain harmful content to an online safety regulator, which can seek its removal. In the United Kingdom, platforms used by children have to assess the risks on their services and put safety measures in place. In the European Union, reports of illegal content from designated groups with relevant expertise get priority for review. None has solved online harm, but each gives authorities something specific to demand and check.
That is what parents need to see here: what the government asked a platform to do, whether it did it, and how long it took. How many urgent reports were sent? Was the harmful content removed? Was evidence kept? Did the child get help? Agencies can release those figures without identifying victims. They can also use them to show which platforms are falling short.
A platform that repeatedly ignores valid requests should face consequences. But before officials block an entire service, they should explain what happened, what gives them the authority to block it, and why dealing with the specific abuse was not enough.
I’ve been writing about OSAEC since I started this website. Since then, abusers have found more ways to reach children through these platforms. I honestly don’t know whether that makes the authorities’ work easier because they know where to look, or harder because the problem has spread across so many apps. What I do know is that shutting down a platform used by hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of people is an unreasonable response. Small businesses and content creators earn a living on these platforms, too.
I also don’t understand why threatening a ban seems to be the government’s first instinct. A shutdown may look like a quick fix, but it leaves the hard questions unanswered. Who harmed the child? How will they be caught? And what happens when they move somewhere else?
I appreciate the effort to protect children. I want the platforms held accountable. But the solutions being offered too often miss the mark. The real work continues after the ultimatum and the press release: investigating cases, helping victims, getting answers from platforms, and checking whether any of those steps actually made children safer.