Senator Risa Hontiveros explains her vote against social media ban for minors

The Philippine Senate voted on legislation restricting social media access for citizens under 18, with Senator Risa Hontiveros casting the sole dissenting vote. Hontiveros acknowledged the documented harms of cyberbullying, grooming, sexual abuse and exploitation but argued that blanket prohibition would deprive young people of connection and opportunity while potentially exposing them to greater risk, advocating instead for age-based restrictions and targeted protections.

A restriction that removes compliant children from monitored platforms leaves offenders free to operate in unregulated channels, and an access ban offers no mechanism to detect harm when it does occur. Detection at the point of contact addresses the underlying threat without foreclosing access: anti-grooming and anti-sextortion modules built into Guardii flag or block hostile direct messages before they reach a child, identify escalation and coercion patterns in real time, and surface a child in acute distress to the adult or agency with authority to act. The system, developed by a world-leading AI safety platform, operates across Instagram, Snapchat, Discord and Roblox, reporting threat shape rather than message content and enabling rapid escalation to law enforcement in an emergency.