A bill filed in the Senate seeks to prohibit children below 16 years old from creating accounts on age-restricted social media platforms, citing growing concerns over cyberbullying, misinformation, harmful online content, and excessive social media use among minors.
Sen. Loren Legarda filed Senate Bill No. 1955, or the “Children’s Safety in Social Media Act,” which proposes stricter safeguards for young users while placing greater accountability on digital platforms.
“Social media has transformed how Filipinos learn, communicate, and participate in public life. It can inform and inspire but it can also mislead, overwhelm and harm,” Legarda said.
Under the proposed measure, social media companies would be required to take “reasonable, proportionate, and privacy-preserving” steps to prevent underage users from creating and maintaining accounts, instead of shifting the burden to parents, schools, or children themselves.
The bill also seeks to balance child protection with constitutional rights by ensuring that regulations on online platforms remain lawful, necessary, and proportionate, while upholding freedom of expression.
To address privacy concerns, the proposal requires age verification systems to comply with the Data Privacy Act of 2012. It prohibits platforms from requiring government-issued identification as the sole method of verifying a user’s age and mandates data minimization in the collection of personal information.
The measure likewise calls for the expansion of digital citizenship and media literacy programs in schools, the development of practical parental guidance tools, and the provision of clearer safety options on social media platforms.
It also proposes the creation of an inter-agency council led by the Department of Information and Communications Technology, with participation from the National Privacy Commission, Department of Education, Department of Social Welfare and Development, and Department of Justice to coordinate government efforts against online harms affecting children.
“While freedom of expression remains a cornerstone of our democratic life, it must be exercised within the bounds of law and with due regard for the rights of others. Protecting children online requires enforceable duties for platforms and a framework that remains consistent with constitutional freedoms,” Legarda said.
The bill is currently pending before the Senate Committee on Public Information and Mass Media, with secondary referral to the Committees on Science and Technology and Finance.