One of the biggest telecom companies in the Philippines had reported blocking nearly half a million child pornography websites in 2023 after the United States-based National Center for Missing and Exploited Children tagged the country as a leading source of online child sexual abuse content.

Globe said it blocked 489,849 child porn websites last year, a 22-percent increase compared to the 401,487 it restricted in 2022. It noted that the number of disabled URLs hosting such content rose from 399,550 in 2022 to 486,802 in 2023, up by 21.8 percent. The figure for blocked domains also saw a 56.5 percent surge from 1,947 two years ago to 3,047 last year, it added.

The company maintained that to comply with Republic Act 9775, or the Anti-Child Pornography Act of 2009, it had to invest in P151-million worth of content-filtering tools to boost its blocking capabilities. In a media statement, the company said it wanted to go “beyond blocking harmful content” by fostering a “culture of vigilance.” This, the statement added, is to “protect the most vulnerable members of our society from the pervasive threats that lurk online.”

Under RA 9775, all Philippine-based telcos are mandated to stop their facilities from serving as portals or gateways to the exploitation of children, even as national and local government agencies move to stop the online sexual exploitation of Filipino children abetted in most cases by their parents or guardians.

A lot more can be done, however, not only by the telcos but also by the many social media platforms like Meta’s Facebook in shutting down child pornography websites. Meta, for example, has laid claim to providing children with safe and positive online experiences while reporting instances of child exploitation to the NCMEC.

“We don’t allow content or behavior that violates our policies against child sexual exploitation and we take steps to remove this content, report it to NCMEC, and liaise with law enforcement where appropriate,” Meta said. “Electronic Service Providers are legally obligated to report apparent violations of laws related to child sexual abuse material, or CSAM, they become aware of to NCMEC’s CyberTipline.”

“In addition to reporting content we become aware of, we’ve developed sophisticated technology to proactively seek out this content, and as a result we find and report more CSAM to NCMEC than any other service today. We make this technology available to the industry to help protect children from exploitation across the internet,” it added.

Further, Meta vowed to start publishing additional data on top of what the NCMEC already publishes on the number of cybertips it receives from ESPs pertaining to the uploading and consumption of child pornography. It said it would go one step further by starting to provide insight to the reports to the NCMEC on the inappropriate interactions with young people.

Meta said that in the second quarter of last year, it reported over 3.7 million incidents to the NCMEC culled from its Facebook and Instagram platforms. It warned that of the total, 48,000 involved questionable interactions by adults with children, including sexual solicitation and attempts to meet and cause harm to a child not just online but in person.

“We’ve developed more than 30 tools to support safe, positive online experiences for teens and their families. For example, we automatically set teens’ accounts to private when they join Instagram; we restrict people over 19 years old from sending private messages to teens who don’t follow them; we use age verification technology to help teens have age-appropriate experiences; and we have parental supervision tools that let parents see who their teen reports or blocks,” Meta said.

In light of the alarming rise in child sexual exploitation content online, it is imperative for telecom companies and online platforms to collaborate with governments and organizations like NCMEC and child safety experts. This battle demands a united front.

Telecom giants and online platforms like Meta must fully commit to transparency, and sharing data on the sexual exploitation of children online. There is always room for more comprehensive reporting and for fostering a culture of vigilance.

As guardians of the digital realm, these companies should not only meet their legal obligations but go beyond, investing in innovative solutions and strategies to protect our society’s most vulnerable members.