By Cristina Palabay
Karapatan secretary general
We condemn this latest attempt by the State to suppress freedom of speech and expression and violate the people’s right to privacy.
We have only to recall the results of the Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) Registration Law. Touted to be the antidote to scammers and other cybercriminals, it has been inutile in stopping cybercrime. All it has succeeded in doing is to supply both the State security agencies and cybercrime syndicates with a centralized database containing the people’s private information that they could readily use in their surveillance and other nefarious activities.
Now comes this proposal for social media registration using the same invalid and discredited premises invoked under the SIM Registration Law. The SIM registration law’s obvious failure to put a stop to cybercrime means that the State’s real agenda behind the social media registration scheme is to curtail free speech and expression, especially at this time when exposés of bureaucratic corruption are so widespread and are further fuelling the people’s outrage and leading to demands for more thoroughgoing systemic change.
We also note that a number of those recently charged by the Department of Justice with sedition have been targeted not just for having led or joined the Sept. 21 anti-protest rally but for their social media activity expounding on the corruption scandal and urging people’s action against it. The social media registration scheme is the next logical step by the State to terrorize the citizenry against airing and seeking redress for corruption and other grievances.
We stand solidly with the people in strongly opposing the social media registration scheme as another repressive tool designed by the Marcos Jr. regime to curtail our basic freedoms.