Telecom executives could face prosecution for allowing child abuse

IN many countries, including the Philippines, children are being targeted by pedophiles and other child abusers using social media platforms that are connected to cyberspace through internet service providers (ISP) owned by telecommunications companies (telcos). Many of these manipulated, seduced, lured and/or captured children are sexually abused in videos that are live-streamed to overseas customers in exchange for money sent through ISP servers. The abusers are sometimes the children’s parents themselves.

Many good parents feel worried and helpless to protect their children from these criminals who are being driven by these telcos and platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Telegram and X. Children are being lured by predators or their peers to watch child abuse images on mobile phones with wifi connection. As a result, many 10 and 12 year old boys have and are abusing girls who are as young as 6 years old.

Child sexual abuse material has a profound and damaging psychological effect on those exposed to it, especially children. Today’s youth are suffering the consequences. The Internet is still in the “Wild West” phase of its evolution.

But change may be on the way. Pavel Durov, the 39-year-old owner and CEO of messaging app Telegram, was arrested in France on August 24. The Russian-born businessman, who holds French and Emirati citizenship, has been charged with inciting multiple crimes — child abuse and exploitation, human trafficking, illegal drug sales, fraud, hate speech, financial crimes and illegal arms sales — committed on Telegram, which has hundreds of thousands of users. The platform has end-to-end encryption, allowing criminals to use it for illegal activities without law enforcement intercepting it. The app is open to everyone and has been used by extremist groups to foment political unrest, as it can hold up to 200,000 people in a single chat room. A single message can reach dozens of users. If found guilty, Durov could face up to 10 years in prison.

The worst crimes being committed on platforms like Telegram, which, to reiterate, are powered by ISPs in the Philippines and elsewhere, are those involving the sharing and transmission of child abuse images without any effective filtering. This is a challenge for our telco bosses to obey Republic Act 11930 or the Anti-Online Sexual Abuse or Exploitation of Children and Anti-Child Sexual Abuse or Exploitation Materials Act — or not travel to Europe.

Through the telcos’ servers, criminals connect to social media platforms, where predators posing as teenage boyfriends seduce and trick minors into sharing their nude photos online. They then blackmail the victims by threatening to post these photos on social media and send them to their parents and schoolmates if they don’t pay up or send more explicit photos. In the Philippines, some of these children are forced to have sex with their blackmailers.

One such case, now before the courts, involves a Catholic priest in Tuguegarao City, Cagayan Province. He allegedly filmed his sexual abuse of a minor — over whom he had moral authority — and blackmailed her into continuing to have sex with him until she collapsed and begged others to help her escape his control. He admitted to the sexual assaults but claimed she had consented, which she repeatedly and vehemently denied. The suspect is in jail and his trial, which has attracted widespread international attention, could last until 2026.

Research from the Women and Children Protection Unit shows that in 2021 and 2022, a shocking 72 per cent of all child abuse cases involved sexual abuse, with many initiated by online grooming. A staggering 6,000 cases of abuse were recorded in 2021, with more than 6,600 recorded the following year. Other research shows that one in three girls and one in five boys have experienced abuse.

The prevalence rate of sexual abuse among girls is 10.7 percent to 17.4 percent, and for boys it is 3.6 percent to 17.4 percent. The trauma that sexual abuse can cause a child is lifelong and never goes away, and can make him or her dysfunctional.

In the Philippines, there are no government therapeutic treatment and recovery homes for sexually abused children, leaving them to endure what they have been through for the rest of their lives. The proposed legislation encourages the establishment of such homes. The Preda Foundation offers a healing therapeutic program with emotional release therapy that allows young victims to release all their pain and anger and be free of it forever. They are empowered to seek justice, bring their abusers to justice and win convictions.

Durov’s arrest is a legal first and a huge legal shock to all CEOs of telcos and social media platforms. It highlights their continued failure to install effective AI-powered blocking software aimed at stopping illegal and sexually explicit content from being sent through their servers and posted to these platforms.

Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau said the filing of charges against Durov led to the “potential criminal liability of executives at this messaging platform.” If this is true for Telegram, it is also true for other executives at telcos and social media. Strict enforcement of the rule of law is essential to curb sexual crimes against vulnerable children.

As its official name suggests, RA 11930, which was passed on July 30, 2022, not only punishes online child sexual abuse and exploitation, but also the production, distribution, possession and access to child sexual abuse or exploitation material. This is what the CEOs of telecom companies are allegedly violating: allowing access to abuse material with impunity. Philippine prosecutors must find the courage and legal know-how to follow the example of their French counterparts and go after these facilitators of online child sexual abuse. It could be a child in your family who will be the next victim of online sexual abuse. We must act now to stop this.

www.preda.org