Remember back when quarantine just started and everyone was trash-talking each other in Facebook groups—but that wasn’t the worst part about it? Last April, one such trash talking group was unveiled to be a platform where people were allegedly sharing pornography involving underaged kids.
Netizens got wind of this Facebook group and started mass reporting as well as calling on the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) and the Philippine Commission on Women (PCW) to investigate. One politician who decisively took action was Senator Risa Hontiveros who filed an official complaint to the NBI against the online sexual exploitation of children (OSEC) last May 18.
Yesterday, Senator Hontiveros shared on Twitter that the NBI was finally getting a move on the case. They first acknowledged that the posts definitely violate the Anti-Child Pornography Act of 2009 and detailed how these pages have already been reported, taken down and investigated.
According to the letter, they have called on Facebook’s management to obtain computer data on the accounts that posted and spread OSEC videos and photos. The letter from NBI also said that they were already working to get cybercrime warrants for “other appropriate law enforcement actions.”
In a follow-up tweet, Hontiveros says that an advisory on Facebook pages that enable OSEC will soon be issued by the Department of Justice’s Office of Cybercrime, Philippine National Police’s Women and Children Protection Center and the NBI’s Anti-Human Trafficking Division.
While waiting for the case to reach a resolution, Hontiveros encourages everyone to keep reporting posts, photos and videos that are related to or enable online sexual exploitation of children.
Art by Dana Calvo
Follow Preen on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and Viber
Related stories:
DLSU fires a faculty member for a sexist post against Sen. Risa Hontiveros
Sen. Risa Hontiveros launches Teletherapy for your mental health needs
Get in, we’re mass reporting pages that sexualize children
Over 140 Zuckerburg-funded scientists urge Facebook to take a stand against misinformation