Have you checked out what your young child has been watching lately on Facebook?
Recently upon clicking on the FB icon on my cellphone, I was surprised to see hardcore porn videos popping up alongside adorable videos of dogs and cats.
At least the porn sites weren’t as intrusive as those pop-up ads for e-gambling that were so hard to get rid of. Also, if your kids are adolescents or teens, it’s nearly impossible to keep them from exploring porn sites on the internet.
But what about kids age five and younger? Many children these days get their first cellphone at age three. I know a four-year-old who learned to scroll through online marketplaces and ordered stuff delivered to their home, to the dismayed astonishment of her mother.
Shopping online for stuff that the parents can’t afford is benign compared to a child’s exposure to sleaze. The problem with such sites is that they might have links that can be accessed by online child sexual predators.
As troubling as the online sexual abuse and exploitation of children are the online games that promote extreme violence.
Cybercrime cops worldwide have found out that games such as GoreBox and Roblox are being accessed by transborder networks espousing NVE – nihilistic violent extremism – to “groom” gamers to inflict lethal harm on others and themselves.
The 14-year-old who shot up the San Jose National High School in Tacloban and killed three schoolmates (all died from shots fired from his gun) was reportedly addicted to GoreBox.
Another 14-year-old who opened fire inside the Ateneo de Zamboanga high school was said to be an avid Roblox gamer. The boy, reportedly a top student, livestreamed his rampage on FB as he killed a schoolmate. He then turned the gun on himself.
Both shooting incidents have sparked debates on possible social media restrictions for minors.
They have also highlighted the reality that the government has limited options to regulate social media platforms, much less impose penalties.
This is because, as explained by officials of the Department of Information and Communication Technology (DICT), the socmed platforms have no offices in the Philippines.
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Meta, parent company of Facebook and Instagram, as well as Google and Yahoo have their regional hubs in Singapore, which allows the city-state to exercise some regulatory control over the companies.
In the US, where Meta is based, the company has agreed to pay a fine of $18 billion – a settlement from the $200 billion sought by the plaintiffs – for encouraging social media addiction among teens.
DICT officials have pointed out that having the physical headquarters of socmed companies in the US allows that country to regulate, sue and enforce penalties on Big Tech. US authorities can summon Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates, and they will appear.
In our case, as far as I know, only TikTok and Google have physical offices here, both in BGC, but their regional offices are based in Singapore.
The city-state has tough rules governing digital information dissemination, but we know why it is the preferred regional headquarters of many of the world’s top corporations. Singapore is renowned for rule of law, a strong and credible regulatory environment and judicial system. But this is another story.
When Sen. Risa Hontiveros summoned the Germany-based developer of GoreBox, Felix Filip, to a Senate hearing on the June 22 school shooting in Tacloban, he simply said hell no, he wouldn’t go, either in person or online. He said GoreBox is meant for gamers aged 18 and older.
Can we ask Germany to send Filip to the Philippines, in the absence of any criminal charges against him? We can’t even get hold of accused plunderer Zaldy Co, who’s happily sipping red wine and café au lait in Paris.
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Last month, the DICT permanently banned GoreBox nationwide.
If we had our own social media platforms, developed in the Philippines, we can afford to also ban Meta, Google, Yahoo and the other Western platforms whose top officials are beyond our reach.
This is the situation in China, which has its own socmed platforms, and which in fact controls TikTok. Apart from depriving the Western socmed giants of a market of over one billion, China can offer alternative platforms to its people.
There are suggestions to remind the tech giants that banning their platforms in the Philippines would deprive them of a market of over 100 million (including children). But it will also require alternative platforms for Pinoy users.
Perhaps one day Filipinos will roll out our own TikTok, Baidu, Tencent and its WeChat. Until then, we have to find other ways of getting the socmed and gaming platforms to help curb minors’ access to violence, porn and other harmful content online.
One proposal is to restrict minors’ access to social media. While it sounds ideal, other countries that have done it are seeing the difficulty of implementation. Younger generations, all digital natives, can find ways of circumventing the age-based ban.
Also, early childhood immersion in the digital world can be useful in the age of artificial intelligence. Microsoft founder Bill Gates published yesterday his thoughts on the need to prepare for AI. You can access the essay here: https://www.gatesnotes.com/a-turbulent-ai-era-and-critical-choices-to-make
While it’s complicated to enforce a social media ban, parents can monitor their kids’ online usage. Up to a certain age, this is still possible.
Beyond this, child behavioral experts advise parents to watch out for changes in their children’s personality, for possible timely interventions. And then to pray.