Platform plaint

YouTube facing a lawsuit in the Philippines? Wonderful. These platforms that subsist primarily as profit-driven dopamine farms need to be reined in.

Former senator Kiko Pangilinan has had enough. Videos attacking him and his family have, allegedly, been floating around in YouTube, and despite attempts at having them taken down via direct complaint to YouTube (and Google), still, those videos were allowed to remain.

Hence, a cyber-libel complaint against not just the content creator Bungagera TV, but the platform that allowed the libelous material to remain available. The senator explains that he had raised his issues with YouTube last December, and yet, at the date of the filing of the complaint, the offending videos were allegedly still spreading their toxic messages.

Good thing he is a former senator, with vast resources at his disposal. Plus, he has had the experience of filing complaints against trolls, having gone down this road before of confronting malicious libel-rousing content creators posting on YouTube. Last year, The Philippine STAR reported that Senator Pangilinan slapped a cyber-libel case against Maharlika channel. This, after successful cases against the “Latest Chika” and “Starlet” YouTube channels.

The good senator is practically an expert at running after cyber-criminals.

What about the rest of us, who have no such resources (and no such experience). We will obviously find it more difficult to seek redress with these mega-tech companies who, if we think about it, have more incentive earning from the advertising generated by sensational content, and will thus be very reluctant to take down that very same content. We also don’t have the same clout as the senator, who can confront the giants.

The good senator is probably scratching his head and asking “what clout? In fact - I’ve had to go to the extent of filing a complaint!”

A victory by Senator Pangilinan will hence be a gift to the rest of us, who might find ourselves in a similar predicament. And not just with YouTube too. This filing by Senator Pangilinan seems prescient as, contemporaneously, Reuters dropped its bombshell investigative report against the behemoth platform Onlyfans.

Reuters found many instances of sexual videos being posted on Onlyfans without the consent of a participant.

In the UK, Thailand, Romania --women had been filmed without their knowledge or consent. There were even assaults or rapes recorded --and posted-- and Onlyfans had let those footage be uploaded.

In the US, Reuters found more than a hundred cases of complaints to different authorities about non-consensual posting of videos on Onlyfans. And Onlyfans had acted in some of them, although not fast enough for the complainants. How about more than a year before an offending account was suspended?

It got to the point where Onlyfans has now been sued for hosting non-consensual content --and the defense of Onlyfans has been, it’s part of free speech. In layman’s terms, as a platform, Onlyfans argues that is just enabling and amplifying the speech of others. And so its theory goes, its actions are protected by the Constitution.

Same banana for YouTube in the case of Senator Pangilinan. YouTube will probably say it is not the libel-actor. It just so happened that the libel-actors used its platform to shout and broadcast and spread their libelous statements.

Whether we are the victims of cyber-libel in YouTube, or we have had the misfortune of being recorded while indulging in some heathen pleasures, and then getting the shock of our lives when our vids get posted in X or Onlyfans, there should be a remedy against the tech platforms responsible. Especially if they don’t act quick enough.

So let us root for the senator to claim victory, so we know we have a remedy as well (and in the meanwhile, stop being so frisky with playmates).

“A victory by Senator Pangilinan will hence be a gift to the rest of us, who might find ourselves in a similar predicament. And not just with YouTube too.”