Remove bad websites, not restrict tech access

In a span of four months, three school shooting incidents took place one after the other, with no less than teenage students as the armed shooters.

Last June 22, two students in San Jose National High School in Leyte went on a shooting spree that killed three schoolmates and left several others injured.

Police reported one of the shooters was a 14-year-old student who played online multiplayer game, Gorebox. According to its Google Play listing, it is a game where players can “obliterate anything [they] desire” and “engage in brutal combat with an extensive arsenal of weapons and explosives.”

On August 18 this year, a shooting incident occurred at the junior high school building of the Ateneo de Zamboanga University in Zamboanga City. Three students were killed, including the Grade-8 student shooter, while 20 others were injured. Police probers discovered the student shooter visited several websites promoting nihilism.

The latest incident of school violence took place at the Banga National High School in South Cotabato where a 16-year-old Grade 9 student shot at 10 of his schoolmates last Friday (Sept.18). Two of his fellow students were killed and eight other schoolmates were wounded. Initial investigation showed the shooter-student allegedly watched and followed True Crime Community websites that purportedly tends to normalize violence.

While one of the shooting incidents was perpetrated by a student who was hooked on a violent online game, there are no scientific studies to show a direct link between video games and violent behavior. Although, there have been a spurt of school-shooting incidents, our government officials must not resort to knee-jerk reactive measures.

The Department of Education (DepEd) announced last Monday it will add another layer of school security – “digital safety.” In a statement, DepEd Secretary Sonny Angara cited the government has already implemented several physical measures to beef up the security in schools, in response to the recent incidents of school violence.

The DepEd “digital safety” campaign intends, Angara cited, to provide practical and age-appropriate guidance on safe chatting and online behavior, grooming and online child exploitation, cyberbullying and online harassment, privacy, scams and protecting personal information.

“We need to give children, parents and teachers the knowledge and tools to navigate these spaces safely,” the DepEd Secretary pointed out. Angara vows to work with the Department of Information and Communications Technology, Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG), among other government agencies, to immediately pilot-test the “digital safety” campaign in selected schools.

There is no one-size-fits-all solution to previously rare school-shooting occurrence in our country.

Officials, namely DILG Secretary Jonvic Remulla, were quick to point to nihilistic websites as having largely brainwashed these students to shoot guns at people as the quick solution to their school problems. Many of our government authorities blame the negligence of these platform operators to filter these so-called “nihilist websites” from being accessed by youngsters whose minds are most vulnerable to its deadly influences.

Information and Communications Secretary Henry Aguda would rather subject tech giants such as Meta Platforms Inc. to get a legislative franchise before they can offer digital platforms, such as Facebook and Messenger, to Filipinos. Aguda favors the imposition of stricter rules on the entry of online platforms in the Philippines in the wake of these tragic events.

In particular, Aguda reportedly supports instead proposed House Bill 4786, or the Social Media Platform Franchise Act pending at the 20th Congress. HB 4786 treats social media sites like Facebook as broadcasting channels. It seeks to mandate digital platforms to establish a local office with a designated country representative and create a grievance redress system accessible to Filipinos.

There is a consolidated House Bill authored by Speaker Faustino Dy III titled “Establishing Safety Standards and Regulatory Measures for the Protection of Children on Social Media and Online Gaming Platforms.” But Dy’s HB is seeking to impose a blanket prohibition instead of risk-based regulation.

Can this be implemented reliably across platforms without creating easy workarounds or simply pushing minors toward less-regulated services? Does enforcing feature-level prohibitions create pressure for platforms to collect or infer more age-related information about every user? Is Congress establishing the substantive rule clearly enough?

From the initial information about this bill, livestreaming, endless scrolling and short-form video are categorically prohibited, while other potentially compulsive features merely require safeguards. Section 19 (h) of this bill targets the mechanism – livestreaming or short-form video – not whether the underlying content is harmful. Platforms must disable these functions for identified child accounts.

Should a 17-year-old and a 13-year-old automatically face exactly the same prohibition on these features? Where is the developmental distinction? Is a categorical feature ban consistent with the bill’s own commitment to proportionate and age-appropriate regulation?

On the other hand, the Senate approved last Monday on third and final reading the proposed Comprehensive School Safety Act under Senate Bill 2426. Authored by Senate President Win Gatchalian, the approved measure reflects his previous proposal to ban the use of mobile devices and portable electronic gadgets within school premises during instructional hours. It could be a much more practical step toward strengthening school safety amid escalating violent incidents involving learners.

There are other separate proposed legislative measures at the Senate and also counterpart bills at the Lower House seeking to impose restrictions in accessing Facebook and other platforms popular to the so-called Millennials and GenZ populace. Our lawmakers are apparently trying to outdo their counterparts in the European Union (EU).

This was after the European Commission had adopted the “Keeping Internet Digital Spaces Accountable and Trustworthy” Act, or KIDS Act for short. It prohibits children under the age of 13 from having a social media account, and sets an EU-wide minimum age for minors to open an account of their own at the age of 15. Service providers operating in 27 EU member states will have to show that their services are age-appropriate and safe by design.

In our situation here, the immediate must-do is remove the bad websites to keep safe cyberspace for our kids’ tech access.