6 Things I Can Say About the Cybercrime Law

It's been a almost a week since the controversial Republic Act No. 10175 or the Cybercrime Prevention Act was implemented. The law was conceptualized to deal with legal issues concerning with the use of the Internet and Social Media particularly Cyber Sex, Pornography, Identity theft and the so called Cyber Libel.

Sounds good, finally the authority can act to stop cyber sex, pornography, hacking and other types of crime organized via internet and social media, but wait, did they mention cyber libel? When we speak of the word libel, it could meant that anyone who post a joke, or comment about someone and created a negative impression we could go to jail. And we we "like" a picture or a post that seems to be criticizing a showbiz or political figure, we could go to jail. Didn't this kind of scenario happened 40 years ago under the leadership of a dictator who prohibit the people from speaking their minds and those who did so vanished without a trace, illegally arrested, tortured and killed? That part doesn't sound so good.


So today we are taking a break from all showbiz and entertainment matters and analyze this so called Cybercrime Law. How is this gonna affect "us" Pinoy Netizens(Social Network Users). And here are 6 things I Can Say About the Cybercrime Law

1. The Cyber Libel thing all started when Sen. Vicente Sotto III earned negative reactions from social media users after allegedly plagiarizing a blogger's article as his privilege speech in the senate regarding the Reproductive Health Bill and it happened again when the Senator was accused of translating John F. Kennedy's speech in Tagalog and once again using it as his speech. That could have caused the Senator's pride to get hurt and says that he is a victim of cyber bullying and vows to conceptualize a law that would protect people like him who falls victim to popular opinion. Sen. Sotto has a point, but he is a Senator, a Lawmaker, so why do he has to copy that works of others? Can't he compose his own privilege speech? And how can he convince the public about his stand as a Lawmaker if he copies the ideas of others?

2. The Cybercrime Law gives power to the NBI and the PNP to immediately block a website which are suspected of doing internet related crimes. How can we assure that the authority will not abuse this kind of power? What if one day a blogger or a webmaster had his blog or website block and receive an email from an officer asking for money in exchange for his/her website/blog? What if one day someone posted a video or photo in the internet of a cop asking money from a traffic violator or lets say someone posted his/her experience about police brutality. How can the public rest assure that they will not be illegally arrested because of these acts?

3. And just how worst can your post or comment be to be found guilty of cyber libel. Let's take the popular online expression "Sumo-Sotto" as an example. I pertains to a person who is acting like Sen. Sotto, is that expression heavy enough to get arrested?

4. Is there really a need for a cyber libel law? If someone posted something libelous, malicious, or obscene in the internet and destroys your reputation, isn't the existing libel law enough to get retribution? All we need is to use the post as an evidence.

5. The social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, Blogger, Tumbler etc. has a feature which allows users to report any abuse, just click that link and they will be the once who will block any user who posted something libelous on their wall. And if you found any website which publishes pornography or contents with racial discrimination, you could report it to Google or Yahoo and those websites will be reindexed and blocked from search engines. The Social media founders know that great powers comes with great responsibility. Social Media is power and they made sue that this powers will not be abused, all we need is to report any form of abuse and defamations.

6. And last but not the least, I do not consent those people who uses social media irresponsibly. I as a blogger sometimes experienced receiving unkind words from readers. One time I encountered someone who sent me his email and challenged me into a fight because I posted something about Angel Locsin which doesn't sound so nice to him, but I never considered that as bullying, that is just speaking his mind as an advocate. If someone bashes my favorite celebrity on the web, I would do that too. But my question to those who misquotes expressing their thoughts through social media as bullies, how would you justify the act of using his power as a Lawmaker and conceptualized a Law to get retributions from his attacker?