Holding social media platforms accountable

Judging from global developments, the possibility of making social media and internet platforms accountable for their content has been gaining ground. Just before the pandemic, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg found himself in front of members of the United States Congress. In the UK, numerous high-profile individuals were hounded by investigative journalists and government officials in relation to the Cambridge Analytica scandals. Just recently, a federal court in Australia ordered Google to pay $515,000 to an Australian politician for failing to remove defamatory videos carried on their YouTube platform. According to a report posted by INSIDER on Facebook, “New South Wales Deputy Premier John Barilaro sued Google for refusing to take down two videos that a judge later ruled were defamatory.” The case stemmed from political commentaries “posted in 2020 by political commentator Jordan Shanks” who “apologized to Barilaro in a settlement last year and paid him $71,000 in damages.”

In his decision, Federal Court Justice Stephen Rares was quoted as saying that while public criticism comes with the territory as a politician, “hate-filled speech and vitriolic, constant public cyber bullying, however, cannot be classified as in anyway acceptable means of communication in a democratic society governed by law.” By “refusing to remove the videos in 2020, Google allowed the cyberbullying to proliferate.” The justice was further quoted as saying: “Google was part and parcel of this disgusting behavior because it facilitated, published and kept on YouTube this and similar videos.”

This case in Australia is quite interesting because of its similarities with the libel case filed against Maria Ressa by a local businessman who claims that what drove him to push through with the case was the continued presence of the allegedly offending material. There are also the issues surrounding “community standards” that social media platforms impose in contrast to their lack of policing trolls, local hate speech and, more recently, their failure or turtle paced response in taking down illegal online sabong accounts, etc. All that does not even include all those embarrassing videos on YouTube, horrific images of accidents, acts of violence, etc.

Imagine how it would feel if you were Chris Rock and your grandchildren keep seeing videos of Will Smith slapping you during the Oscars? Or videos and photographs of a crime scene where your family member was abused and murdered? Even the simple “Most Embarrassing Videos” of our lives being perpetually available on the web can be tormenting. Why is it that all these can live forever in a time when everyone talks about “intellectual property rights,” copyrights, privacy and defamation?

Congress should start improving all our laws pertaining to the digital space, particularly in the area of accountability and legal liabilities and fines that should be imposed on internet and social media platforms that have monetized Filipino patronage. Unless we have specific laws, fines or penalties, members of the judiciary would be hard pressed at making the same decisions that the justice in Australia made against Google. There have to be laws that regulate platforms and self-assigned ownership of such contents. There should be strict “take down” provisions when the continued presence of certain material is deemed offensive, degrading or defamatory, etc. and we must ascribe monetary penalties or nothing will happen.

Bear in mind that we live in a country where a van driver/owner can be fined upwards of P1 million for “colorum” or operating a van without a franchise. The Anti-Cyber Libel law by itself merely addresses the source or original material but does not regulate the platforms or penalize them for carrying the offensive material. Congress should give more teeth to government regulators, ensure that there is a government body and funding to screen and regulate the digital space and its content. If broadcasters have the KBP, if film has the MTRCB, etc., if print journalism is regulated by the Libel Law and the courts, then there should be a gatekeeper agency that will act similarly for social media platforms.

By the way, if the BBM administration wants to raise funds, then tax all the income generated by social media platforms for those annoying commercials and “sponsored” messages that pop up on every video shown on Facebook or YouTube.

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During recent interviews on our program AGENDA (Cignal TV), veteran Cebu politician Tommy Osmeña suggested that Congress should realign national holidays so that they fall on weekends, particularly Fridays, in order to create “long weekends” that help bolster tourism. This is a practice done in the US where holidays are on the first weekend, the 2nd week of etc. This was previously introduced by Senator Dick Gordon when he was secretary of tourism and it certainly encouraged many Filipinos to travel locally. Given the many improvements in tollways, expressways, FastCat ferries and airlines, adjusting holidays as well as departure schedules on weekends would allow travelers to leave on Thursdays after work and enjoy the weekend before returning on Sunday evening or early Monday morning.

In our interview with Senator Rissa Hontiveros, we discussed reorganizing the bureaucracy so that departments such as the DENR and the DOTr can be split up for efficiency as well as check and balance. Environmental functions of government are regulatory in nature that should be separate from management of natural resources. As for the DOTr, Congress should consider removing the LTO from the DOTr and turning it into the Department of Motor Vehicle because the DOTr has too much on its plate and the history of major errors and interference of DOTr bosses with the LTO is why the agency can’t get out of the rut they are in. They cannot even spend some of the money they earn for operational needs.

We also suggested the creation of an independent “Renewable Energy Agency” tasked with promoting renewable energy. If we want improvements, we need to make changes in the bureaucracy.