Congressional franchise floated as a must for socmed platforms聽
Presidential Communications Office Secretary Jay Ruiz — Screengrab from 好色先生TV video
MANILA, Philippines — Members of the House tricommittee investigating the spread of disinformation in the country are considering requiring social media platforms to secure a congressional franchise before they could operate in the Philippines.
The joint panel — composed of the House committees on public information, on public order and safety, and on information and communication technology — discussed the proposal on Thursday during its last hearing under the 19th Congress, which ends on June 13.
The Philippines currently has no legislation or policies regulating social media platforms, essentially counting on their companies to police themselves.
Free speech advocates are often wary of such curbs for fear they might be used to suppress legitimate dissent.
Attending as a resource person during Thursday’s hearing, Presidential Communications Office (PCO) Secretary Jay Ruiz was the first to float the idea of placing social media under state regulation.
No PH taxpayers
Ruiz, a former TV reporter, noted one instance when Meta refused to act on a post containing “false content” even after being debunked by official government statements.
He recalled that Meta refused to take down a memo attributed to the Office of the Executive Secretary, which was later proven to be fake by the Cybercrime Investigation and Coordinating Center (CICC) of the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT).
“The platforms often use the argument that this is freedom of expression, that ‘we have community standards, each user is accountable to his or her account.’ So what does this mean? Are we at the mercy of platforms?” Ruiz asked during the hearing.
“So now we have social media platforms that do not pay taxes, that are not even based here, but don’t regulate well to stop fake news here,” he said. “Now they’re profiting off of us.”
Surigao del Sur Rep. Johnny Pimentel agreed, saying platforms like Meta, which lists the country among its largest markets in Southeast Asia, “are not even paying taxes to the Philippine government.”
“Our request is for them to have self-regulation. However, as I have said, they’re not listening to us,” Pimentel said. “If they cannot have self-regulation, it must be the government that [should] regulate them.”
There was no immediate comment from Meta, which had no representative present during the hearing and could not be immediately reached by the Inquirer for an interview.
‘Standards Coalition’
Bataan Rep. Geraldine Roman, a former journalist, also agreed that social media companies must abide by stringent rules, though she earlier stated her position that content creators themselves must not be subjected to state regulation.
Roman’s proposals include requiring them to establish a legal entity in the country, maintain a registry of social media accounts to ensure they are of real persons, and adhere to the recommendations of a body to be called the Digital Media Standards Coalition (DMSC).
Roman said the DMSC may be composed of news organizations, advertisers, academe, and content creators who can organize and draw up their own standards and regulations.
“Let us remember that these platforms rake in billions of pesos every year and we cannot ignore this fact,” Roman said at the hearing.
For Information and Communications Technology Secretary Henry Aguda, there is no reason for social media platforms to be spared from regulation, similar to that exercised by Kapisanan ng mga Brodkaster sa Pilipinas (for TV and radio stations) and by the Movie and Television Review Classification Board.
“To be honest, social media platforms should be regulated because they earn money from that; they’re the richest companies in the world,” Aguda said.
Fake news detector
He said his department had a meeting with representatives of Google, TikTok, and homegrown social entertainment app Kumu on Wednesday, where they committed to comply with government directives on disinformation.
According to Aguda, Meta also assured the DICT that it would implement a “demotion mechanism” on posts that had been flagged as fake news by either the CICC or the PCO.
“These would be demoted from the newsfeeds—meaning it would not be completely removed but will decrease in visibility,” he said. “But at the same time, what we really want from them is more stringent self-regulation.”
DICT is also currently testing an artificial intelligence-powered system that could detect fake news and online scams.
“This (system) is 100-percent Filipino-made, and we’re hoping to endorse this to Meta and other platforms,” the Cabinet official added.
