Telco bosses could be prosecuted for aiding and abetting child abuse

In many countries, including the Philippines, children are targeted by pedophiles and other child abusers who use social media platforms connected to cyberspace through Internet Service Providers (ISPs) owned by telecommunications companies. Many of these manipulated, seduced, lured and/or trapped children are sexually abused in videos streamed live to overseas customers in exchange for money transferred through ISP servers. The abusers are sometimes the children's own parents.

Many good parents are worried and helpless when it comes to protecting their children from these criminals who are supported by these telecom companies and platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Telegram and X. Children are being tricked by sexual predators or their peers into viewing child sexual abuse images on Wi-Fi enabled mobile phones. As a result, many 10 and 12 year old boys have and are abusing girls who are as young as 6 years old.

Images of child sexual abuse have a profound and damaging psychological impact on those affected, especially children. Today's youth are suffering the consequences. The Internet is still in the “Wild West” phase of its development.

But there may be changes. 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, is accused of aiding and abetting various crimes – child abuse and exploitation, human trafficking, illegal drug trafficking, fraud, hate speech, financial crimes and illegal arms trafficking – committed on Telegram, which has hundreds of thousands of users. The platform has end-to-end encryption that allows criminals to use it for illegal activities without being intercepted by law enforcement. The app is accessible to all and is used by extremist groups to foment political unrest because it can accommodate 200,000 people in a single chatroom. A single message can reach dozens of users. If found guilty, Durov faces 10 years in prison.

The worst crimes committed on platforms like Telegram, which, to reiterate, are operated by ISPs in the Philippines and elsewhere, are those where child abuse images can be shared and transmitted without effective filters. This poses a challenge for our telecom chiefs to abide by Republic Act 11930 or the Anti-Online Sexual Abuse of Exploitation of Children and the Anti-Child Sexual Abuse or Exploitation Materials Act – or not travel to Europe.

Criminals use phone company servers to connect to social media platforms. There, perpetrators try to pose as teenage friends and manipulate minors into sharing their nude photos online. They then blackmail victims by threatening to post these images on social media and send them to their parents and schoolmates unless they pay 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 court involves a Catholic priest in Tuguegarao City, Cagayan province. He allegedly videotaped his sexual abuse of a minor – over whom he had moral superiority – 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 consented to them, which she repeatedly and vehemently denied. The suspect is in prison and his trial, which has drawn huge international interest, could last until 2026.

Research by the Women and Children Protection Unit shows that in 2021 and 2022, a shocking 72 percent of all child abuse cases involved sexual assault, many of which began through online grooming. In 2021, 6,000 cases of abuse were recorded, and the following year, more than 6,600 were reported. Other research shows that one in three girls and one in five boys have been victims of abuse.

The prevalence rate of sexual abuse is 10.7 to 17.4 percent for girls and 3.6 to 17.4 percent for boys. The trauma that sexual abuse can inflict on a child lasts a lifetime and never goes away. It can make their life dysfunctional.

In the Philippines, there are no government-run treatment and recovery homes for sexually abused children, leaving them to struggle with what they have experienced for the rest of their lives. A bill encourages the establishment of such homes. The Preda Foundation offers a therapeutic healing program using emotional relaxation therapy that enables young victims to release all their pain and anger and be free from it forever. They are able to seek justice, bring their abusers to justice and obtain convictions.

Durov's arrest is a legal first and a major legal shock for all CEOs of telecom and social media platforms. It underscores their continued failure to install effective artificial intelligence-based blocking software to prevent illegal and sexually explicit content from passing through their servers and being published on these platforms.

Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau said the indictment against Durov leads to the “potential criminal liability of executives of this messaging platform.” If this is true for Telegram, then it is also true for executives of other telecom and social media companies. Strict enforcement of the rule of law is essential to curb sex crimes against vulnerable children.

As its official name makes clear, RA 11930, passed on July 30, 2022, not only penalizes 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 telecom company CEOs are allegedly violating: allowing access to abuse material with impunity. Filipino prosecutors must have the courage and legal know-how to follow the example of their French counterparts and prosecute these enablers of online child sexual abuse. It could be a child in your family who becomes the next victim of online sexual abuse. We must act now to put a stop to it.

www.preda.org