The safest social media platforms for children

CONSIDER this a call for the defense of children. A call for all good people reading this to strongly commit to do good, protect children from abuse, and offer them healing and a chance to have a life free from abuse and exploitation. That is the duty of every human being, but not everyone has the compassion, moral strength and conviction that caring for abused and exploited children would one day crush the head of the proverbial serpent and win the moral battle for the minds, hearts, spirits and lives of all children in our communities.

The evil serpent turning innocent children into fearful, intimidated and controlled persons is embodied in uncontrolled internet platforms like Facebook, TikTok and many others. These sites, through their negligence, allow evil content that damages the minds and hearts of children. The uploaded images and online grooming lure children to unwittingly participate in harmful actions. They are caught in situations that could lead some of them to take their own lives.

Everyone must know that there are safe and secure alternatives to sites like Facebook, and we ought to direct children to platforms like Kidzworld, Cocoon, PX Kd and Zigazoo. A very creative platform named Good targets children age 5 and older. Another, Azoomee, offers games and videos to kids. Then there is Kinzoo Messenger for Families. Yet another is Blinx, which is great for children ages 8 and older. GeckoLife and the Franktown Rocks website are good, too.

Adults who want safe and cleaner alternatives can transfer to other platforms and persuade their friends and contacts to switch to Masodom or Ownmates. Also, Signal and Telegram are apparently safer than Facebook for communicating.

Many people find child abuse too shocking to read or think about, let alone become determined to act for good and oppose evil. That’s because there are so many millions of child abuse victims who are now adults with repressed memories. They turn away from thoughts and memories of the crimes committed against them, from which they continue to suffer. The memory of their sexual abuse cannot be totally erased. Even if they are already adults, victims could heal if they fought back, joined campaigns against this evil and saved other victims. Silence and failure to act allow more crimes and abuse to continue.

Others ignore the evil done to children and continue to use Facebook and other harmful sites. Thousands of children are abused in the Philippines, according to United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) research on these sites.

To be fair, the platform can be used for good, too. Everyone with knowledge of good and evil and conscience must control and limit their use of the site to essential contact and advise and persuade their friends to transfer to a cleaner, more morally acceptable platform.

Every person concerned with safeguarding children should invite his or her friends to join a petition to their respective governments and begin a campaign to appeal to the public, hold an initially small rally, and demand international action from the European Union and the United States for laws imposing more stringent control of social media platforms and supporting changes to Section 230 of the US Communications

Decency Act of 1996.

This law protects such platforms from being sued for any information that people have posted there. They may not be legally responsible under this law, but they are morally so. Platforms like Facebook allegedly have no conscience or interest in moderating evil and corrupting content. They hide behind and are protected by Section 230. This must be changed. The people to be held responsible under the law in most countries are those posting illegal materials and those who access them.

The internet connects everyone with an account, and internet service providers (ISPs) that use and enable it to function have little or no effective blocking software installed, causing evil content and abusers to multiply. Powerful software is available to stop many images of child abuse, but telecommunications companies (telcos), despite their huge profits, don’t use them. It is likely that the software will slow down their systems and cause them to lose customers to other providers.

ISPs should install blocking software, per Republic Act 11930. But it seems they choose to ignore the law. Under that law’s Section 3(e), the telecommunications or information and communications technology regulator — the National Telecommunications Commission — is among the identified competent authorities. Under Section 9(a), the regulator can order internet intermediaries to immediately block access to, remove, or take down the internet address, uniform resource locator or URL, websites, or any content containing child sexual abuse and exploitation material or involving the streaming — live or not — of such abuse and exploitation online. The telcos and ISPs seem to care more about making money than child safety.

In a comprehensive study conducted between January and April 2021, Unicef researchers found that one in every five Filipinos between ages 12 and 17 said they were sexually abused online. Ninety percent of the 950 children the researchers contacted and interviewed said they were using Facebook and Messenger. The study also said children reported that the abuse began on other sites like TikTok, X, Instagram and Snapchat.

It’s even worse for girls. Some were lured by a “boyfriend” to expose themselves online. They were recorded and blackmailed to pay not to have their compromising photos and videos sent to their families and classmates.

Others suffered when their private photos were circulated on Facebook without their permission. Many children have committed suicide because of this. There is a 15-year-old girl who was allegedly raped by a priest in Cagayan. She was blackmailed into having sex with him. The priest, now in jail while facing trial, admitted the crime but claimed it was consensual. He recorded the abuse on video and used it to blackmail her. Eventually, she broke down and told her friends what he did.

Other children reported to Unicef being sexually abused by their Facebook contacts. They were ashamed or afraid to report it. They continue to suffer in silence and keep the hurt and pain they feel inside. We must all work together for the passage of a law setting up a children’s court to try child abuse cases and establish dozens of therapeutic centers to heal and empower the victims, which Sen. Ana Theresia “Risa” Hontiveros is researching. May she get Congress’ support in this important endeavor.