Socmed registration suppresses freedom of speech, violates right to privacy - KARAPATAN
KARAPATAN Public Information
4 February 2026
Reference: Cristina Palabay, KARAPATAN secretary general, 09173162831
KARAPATAN Public Information Desk, 09189790580
Socmed registration suppresses freedom of speech, violates right to privacy - KARAPATAN
KARAPATAN condemned a proposed circular from the Department of Information and Communication Technology (DICT) requiring social media registration, calling it “the latest attempt by the State to suppress freedom of speech and expression and violate the people’s right to privacy.”
The draft DICT circular calls for users of all social media platforms, including email and messaging applications, to link these to their registered SIMs, ostensibly to curb computer-related offenses.While the DICT has said that social media registration may become voluntary, KARAPATAN secretary general Cristina Palabay said the State may impose severe restrictions on the use of unregistered accounts, making the circular mandatory in essence.
On the DICT's claims that social media registration would cut down on cybercrimes, Palabay said “We have only to recall the results of the SIM Registration Law. Touted to be the antidote to scammers and other cybercriminals, it has been inutile in stopping cybercrime. All it has succeeded in doing is to supply both the State security agencies and cybercrime syndicates with a centralized database containing the people’s private information that they could readily use in their surveillance and other nefarious activities.”
“Now comes this proposal for Social Media Registration using the same invalid and discredited premises invoked under the SIM Registration Law,” added Palabay. “The SIM registration law’s obvious failure to put a stop to cybercrime means that the State’s real agenda behind the social media registration scheme is to curtail free speech and expression, especially at this time when exposés of bureaucratic corruption are so widespread and are further fuelling the people’s outrage and leading to demands for more thoroughgoing systemic change.”
“We also note,” said Palabay, “that a number of those recently charged by the Department of Justice with sedition have been targeted not just for having led or joined the September 21 anti-corruption rally but for their social media activity expounding on the corruption scandal and urging people’s action against it. The social media registration scheme is the next logical step by the State to terrorize the citizenry against airing and seeking redress for corruption and other grievances.”
KARAPATAN stands solidly with the people in strongly opposing the Social Media Registration scheme as another repressive tool designed by the Marcos Jr. regime to curtail our basic freedoms, concluded Palabay.
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KARAPATAN is an alliance of human rights organizations and programs, human rights desks and committees of people’s organizations, and individual advocates committed to the defense and promotion of people’s rights and civil liberties. It monitors and documents cases of human rights violations, assists and defends victims and conducts education, training and campaign. It was established in 1995.