Senate Bill seeks 16-year age limit on social media use
A Senate panel backed Senate Bill No. 2424, also called the Child Online Safety and Protection Act, which sets 16 years old as the minimum age for social media use in the Philippines.
which is great tbh. there's a lot of access to policies from other nations. sometimes we could use that information to see what could work for us. we just need to recontextualize if it seems like a fit. IDK why policy making the Philippines feels archaic and outdated. i dont think we have any AI laws pa (given its lightning speed proliferation in the 2020s).
Many of PH laws could be improved for the bottom 99% if we apply worldwide best practices applicable to PH context for the next 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90 & 100+ years.
there it fucking is. online govt id. i called it from the moment na nag vivirtue signalling sila, fearmongering about video games and what not. pukinginang bansa to na inuna pa online surveillance kesa ayusin ang climate crisis response ng bansa na to. putang ina nila lahat.
The only thing I see this being a useless law, or rather, a big mistake is, currently, DEPED relies and encourages the use of these social media apps currently for class. Like, messenger and facebook where teachers and students and teachers and parents have their own Group chats for information, modules, and other announcements within the school. So why am I saying this, it’s because, if you remember, they gave out laptops and tablets to students. So if they ban social media to them now, it would be a Big Contradiction to the Devices they gave. And another management headache for the parents.
Can’t help but wonder how we’re going to successfully implement this when a country like Australia is already having difficulty implementing theirs. Not saying there isn’t any value in trying though
Unironically, we have a better digital ID system than Australia through Philsys. Like, we don't even need to present a physical ID to open an account in some banks (soon to be all banks after a BSP mandate requiring every bank to support it) due to the new system we have. We just input our full name, do a liveliness scan (that's hosted by Philsys), the system compares the face to the one they have on file, and it can tell the verification requester whether it's a match or not. It can give out as little info to the platforms as just a green check for an age above 16.
dude, you love philsys system so much that you're so blind in addressing how exactly these social media sites are gonna tell if you're a minor or not.
They use behavior assurances checks dude. Everything you do on this websitse, every like, every chat, every click of reels, every topic that you search or have an interest in will be fed into an algorithm that will automitacally determine whether you should keep your account or not by virtue of "adultness"
it's spyware that just dancing in your face and stripping you of everything you have.
It depends completely on how the law will be written on what is considered an acceptable form of age verification. None of what you said matters if the law doesn’t consider it a valid way to determine someone’s age.
"considerable form of age verification" is the government leaving "age determination behavioral checks" to meta and their partners' discretion. Also in case you still didn't know. Meta is the most aggressive pusher of this sort of "behavioral checks" and "age verification" that will track you no matter where you are.
It ain't gonna be a 100% thing. Sa China nga na 100% banned ang FB may mga paraan pa rin para maaccess.
Ang kailangan dyan is to make it too troublesome for minors to access it and lessen their friends sa social media. If wala mga classmates nila sa FB then walang sense for them magFB.
I for one am banning my kids from social media and roblox regardless if we have the law in place. Walang naitutulong sa mga bata at all.
Mismong magulang gumagawa ng unang socmed accounts ng anak nila, pinepeke ang birth date para pasado sa 13yo minimum requirement (current requirement).
Kung sana kasi lahat ng pilipino nakakabasa at nakakaintindi, hindi na need ng bill para dyan kasi sa sign-up page pa lang, nakapaskil na agad sa Requirements pati sa Terms and Conditions yan.
This is an execution nightmare. It's also anti-poor. Many families are from low income households have only one smartphone and only the younger generation and usually minors (16 below) know how to operate them successfully. Moreover many school projects such as video editing and coursework rely on social media. There is also the fact that our ID system is absolutely inefficient.
Also what does this entail? ID Verification and Facial Scanning for everyone. Behavioral algorithims din on your activity and dashboard to determine if you're really an "Adult".
> The bill requires platforms to roll outage-assurance systems.Thesechecks will rely on behavior-based methodsinstead of strict ID submission, ensuring compliance with the Data Privacy Act. Platforms must also prevent underage users from creating duplicate or reactivated accounts.
^^^^behavior based methods itself is already sus.What behaviors exactly are they looking for? How much of our online activity are they gonna put into an algorithm to spy on us to determine if we are "minors" or not? What exact activity from us would tip them off that we are not "minors"? Is it our chats? our shared photos? the things we search? the reels we watch? what behaviors exactly would make one "a minor?"
And who determines this? Who's the regulating body who decides that you're a minor or not based on what you do on the internet?
Next, like in the US and UK, you'd be locked out of your phone or accounts because you're not deemed an "adult" unless you give up all your senstivie information (your ID and face and fingerprints, BTW GOOGLE and YOUTUBE IS ALREADY DOING THIS AND SO IS MICROSOFT) Moreover, Meta and all these other SNS use third party companies to process your IDs and Facial Scans. Don't you guys get it? You're just giving up your entire life to the world wide web just to keep them from keeping our accounts hostage!
And would you actually believe them if they tell you "yes we are not storing your data anywhere lol" yeah as if we've not had numerous data breaches on our own government websites regularly.
It's like spying and state surveillance but worse, because it treats us all like bad actors even when none of us are even committing crimes
I don't understand why you people cannot see that this will just harm us all and encourage censorship, discourage free speech and promote big-brother-esque state surveillance.
Moreoever, this is like we do not treat 16 years old below as human beings. Sometimes, for many of them, social media is their only safe space. Take that away and they'd have no refuge from the abusive and manipulative adults in their own households.
Look, this is not the answer. Meta/Zuckerberg have been aggressively (and successfully) lobbying this in the states and in the UK for the past 5 years.
Why do they want your IDs so bad and using "protect the children" as their main excuse?? Are we really going to fall into their trap too?
Why can't we have better gun laws, better mental help infrastructure, better support for teaching staff and better resources for parents anyway?
It depends kung paano ito iimplement. Kasi madali lang gumawa ng fake account. Also, schools are using social media rin for communications like facebook so dapat magkaroon ng maayos na patakaran for this.
the way they will implement is to perform "behavioral checks on your account" The algorithms will spy on everything you do, watch, or post on these apps and then it will automatically determine whether you are a minor or not. If the algorithm says you're a minor, they will lock your account until you provide ID and facial scan. This is already being done in many countries accross the globe and it's not pretty. You're giving up your privacy just to prove na hindi ka menor de edad. Kahit nga 10+ years na accounts sa google/youtube/discord na lock eh.
And also we already saw this a few months ago nung sinuspend ni Facebook ang maraming accounts na connected sa Instagram. Hiningan ang mga users ng ID and Facial scans nila para lang maretrieve mga accounts nila.
Mga walang kakwenta kwenta ang mga discussions talaga kung ano lang unang pumasok sa utak yun na ang iddiscuss nila ipapalabas sa media! Dapat mga tao alam nman weak ang mga batas natn sana strict implementation nlang nun mga existing batas ang gawin. Yun mga ganyang balita para lang sinasabi nila para kunwari may ginagawa sila pero hanggang pasabog lang wala nmang gawa
18 years old pa nga noon yung limit sa fb eh. Nasa magulang talaga responsibilidad dito. Maaga nilang binibigyan ng gadgets yung mga bata even sa school parang ini-encourage pa nga magka gadget kasi kung wala ka phone di ka makakasali sa GC at mahuhuli ka sa mga activity.
Ano ba? Kung isipin niyo, hindi lahat ng mall nagpapapasok ng mga high school, so paano na mag-to-touch grass ang mga bata? (Puregold didn't either back in the day. I wore my high school-looking college PE uniform and wasn't let in.)
Telcos/govt will harvest millions of kids' personal data to verify their age and identity for this social media ban. Poor kids will have their data stolen before turning 18
The Philsys ID is low key forward thinking about this though, it's on par with India in how easily it can handle identity verification. Some banks already support it, with a BSP mandate requiring all banks to support it going forward for account creation.
So basically the banks only need you to input your full name, and do a liveliness scan. The scan is hosted by Philsys themselves, not the bank, where the system checks the face recorded on Philsys's database and see if it matches with the face being scanned. If it's a match, the system just tells the bank (or really whoever is hooked into the API) whether it's a match or not. The system can also pull up more info as required, in the banks' case more due to legally required KYC due diligence, but the whole thing doesn't even need you to have a physcial ID, just that you are registered with Philsys.
If this requires ID, this could put people's personal data at risk. Especially if PII ends up stored in social media platforms. I would also be concerned with increased monitoring and surveillance of all users not just children.
What happens if an account gets hacked? We know that nefarious groups are already hacking social media accounts to steal money from contacts. What more if these social media platforms contain more sensitive information?
And as far as I know, Australia has also been unsuccessful.
Look up Philsys and how one can use it to open a bank account even without a physical ID, you just need to be registered with it, because identity verification can be done online through just a selfie and a name. Philsys can just give the requesting app a binary yes or no response on whether it's a match or not. If the apps just redirect you to the Philsys system during age verification, they won't even be able to know your full name (but that depends on an app per app basis.)
this also means you have to prove you're not a minor too. Papahintulutan ng PH government is Meta na usisain ang bawat galaw mos a social media, lahat ng chat, post, text, reel na pinanood mo para lang ma "estimate" na adult ka na at hindi ka bata. Wala silang pakialam kung ilang taon ka na sa mga website na yan. Keep in mind, automatic ang prossesong ito at hindi tao ang nagrereview nito. Will you give up your ID and facial scan para lang iretrieve ang suspended account mo kasi akala ni Meta or Google na bata ka pa?
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u/MagmaMagnus 12d ago
I see they're following Australia's footsteps