Making social media safe for kids
The Philippines may soon be among the countries that are prohibiting minors from using social media platforms to protect them from online risks, if such proposals are passed by Congress.
Several measures have been filed in the Senate seeking to ban children under the age of 16 from having social media accounts as a safeguard from cyberbullying, online predation, and mental health issues. The latest is Senate Bill No. 2066, the proposed Social Media Safety for Children Act, which will require social media platforms to implement age-verification mechanisms, including regular audits to prevent the duplication or reactivation of accounts.
The measure follows similar legislation in Australia, the first in the world to impose the ban in December last year, which has blocked children from using Facebook, Instagram, X, TikTok, and Threads, among others. In Asia, Indonesia and Malaysia are also planning to impose similar bans, to be implemented this year.
This move will certainly be a challenge for the Philippines, which has been tagged as the social media capital of the world. Based on a 2025 study by the Norway-based media monitoring firm Meltwater, 97.5 million Filipinos out of the estimated 116 million population use the internet and have created 90.8 million user identities online. They use these platforms to connect with family, friends, and their communities, as well as to keep up with current events.
Most popular platform
A cursory glance at Facebook, the most popular platform in the country, indicates that Filipinos across ages—including minors—are active users. But while this has provided social connections, it has also exposed children to online toxicity that would often bleed from the virtual world to reality. Any Facebook or X user would know that these platforms are not just sources for news and entertainment, but they have also become a cesspool of fake news, toxic discourse, and bullying.
The immediate danger is for minors to normalize these negative behaviors that they pick up on social media, including developing a low tolerance for differing views and bullying others, and eventually grow as adults who lack the emotional intelligence and maturity to function in the real world, where diversity of ideas prevails.
A 2023 case study on cyberbullying conducted in a Marikina high school, for example, showed that students feel the anonymity provided by online platforms has made it easier to target victims without fear of consequences.
A 2020 United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund study, meanwhile, found that Filipino children generally first go online at 10 years old, “although the age of first access to the internet seems to be getting lower.” It also found that children were not allowed to access the internet as much as they wanted to, but were often unsupervised when they did.
‘Harmful design choices’
These various findings make it all the more urgent for the government to implement intervention measures. As Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian, author of SB 2066, stated: “It’s time to protect our children from the dangers brought by social media. Let us not wait for this to worsen before we take action.”
Some analysts, however, cautioned that a ban does not address the root of the problem. An article published last month by the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), a Washington-based nonprofit research center, warned that restricting minors from accessing social media may not be an effective way to protect them online. “They will find their ways back onto the platforms somehow—either through parental consent or circumvention—and be exposed to the same harm,” wrote Megan Iorio, EPIC’s senior counsel.
Instead, Iorio said, the solution is to regulate online companies’ “harmful design choices.” She cited the landmark social media case in the United States in March that found Meta and YouTube liable for harming a young user with design features that were addictive and led to mental health distress, and penalized them with million-dollar fines.
Healthier digital ecosystem
Philippine lawmakers must consider this and not just focus on mechanisms banning minors, but also on placing the responsibility on social media companies for how they design their products to be addictive through the use of algorithms.
So far, the bills pending in Congress focus on age verification measures, which is a good starting point. But the government must join other countries in making these firms more accountable and pressuring them to eliminate designs that capture minors’ data and attention, and entice them to keep on scrolling and stay online.
Any social media safety for children law ultimately must also recognize that technology has become an integral part of today’s generation to learn, socialize, and engage with the world. It must regulate, but at the same time, foster a healthier digital ecosystem where children grow up to be more discerning and critical, instead of mindlessly consuming what they encounter online, or worse, finding ways to circumvent the law.
For letters to the editor and contributed articles, email to opinion@inquirer.net
