On Monday, the Philippines House of Representatives passed a bill banning children under 13 from social media platforms, while those between 13 and 17 would have limited access, with 287 members voting in favor and only three against the measure. The latest bill follows its Senate counterpart, which passed last week but has a higher age threshold, barring people under 18 from social media platforms and services classified as “high-risk.”
Philippine President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. said that it was not “surprising at all” that Congress took action amid concerns that social media is believed to have influenced children to take part in violent acts. However, Marcos said his Administration would still study whether such a ban could work in the Southeast Asian nation of more than 110 million people.
Age-specific social media bans have been up for debate in the Philippines since at least 2019, but it gained momentum earlier this year, following reports of a foiled mass shooting plot by students in February as well as shootings and stabbings in other regions in the months that followed. Education Secretary Juan Edgardo Angara said harmful online influences were a possible factor behind those incidents, saying in July that experts have pointed to “exposure of young people to damaging social media sites, negative influences, groomers, and terrorist groups online actively recruiting (children).”
The Philippine Senate’s version of the social media bill passed almost unanimously, save for Sen. Risa Hontiveros, a children and women’s rights champion. Hontiveros, in explaining her sole dissenting vote, said she prefers “tiered restrictions” for adolescents instead of a blanket under-18 ban. “Our legislation must reflect the realities of how social media has also benefited young people,” Hontiveros said, adding that a sudden prohibition could drive children’s social media underground.
Sen. Robinhood Padilla, who sponsored the Senate’s version, told a local radio station that the upper chamber’s measure was necessary to curb not only violence in schools but bad influence on youth as a whole. “This measure must be passed immediately because [social media has] caused a lot of bad things to our youth, especially to minors,” Padilla said on Oct. 11, citing instances of bullying, suicides, and school shootings. “All these problems have compounded over time.”
Senate President Sherwin Gatchalian claimed in June that “a lot of young people are addicted to social media and violent games, and studies showed that it has an influence on their mental health.” A clear causal link between violent video gaming and violence has yet to be established.
Seeking an answer to school violence
Several school-related incidents rocked the Philippines ahead of the passage of the bills.
Then in June, two male students aged 14 and 15 opened fire in their school in Tacloban City, killing three students. Twenty others were injured in the shooting incident. In turn, Philippine authorities temporarily banned GoreBox, a sandbox-style action game that simulates violence and destruction using weapons.
Only a month later, a shooting at another southern Philippine high school left two 14-year-old students dead and eight people wounded. The gunman, a teenager also from the school, fatally shot himself. Upon investigation, police found posts the shooter made in an online community where young people involved in school shootings are idolized.
But the Philippine Mental Health Association argues that a blanket ban on social media is a “non-solution.” PMHA national executive director Dr. Carolina Uno-Rayco said in a statement to the media Thursday: “Preventing violence requires a comprehensive approach that includes mental health support, safe school environments, responsible online platforms and early identification and intervention.”
Activist group Akbayan Youth argued that the proposed social media ban penalizes young users by disrupting those who depend on them for education and livelihood and called for redirecting the regulation. “Do not punish the youth,” the organization’s national chairperson Khylla Meneses said in a statement. “Hold accountable the platforms that profit from how social media operates.”
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