Alvarez Files House Bill To Regulate Social Media, Penalize Fake Users

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House Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez III filed a bill intending to regulate social media accounts like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and Instagram to prevent online identity theft. Yahoo!, Google and other internet sites are part of the category that will also be covered by the bill.

Alvarez Files House Bill to Regulate Social Media

According to Philstar, Alvarez filed House Bill No. 5021 also known as the Social Media Regulation Act of 2017. The lawmaker cited the responsibility of social media networks- “such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, as well as sites like Pinterest, Instagram, and the likes” – to verify the authenticity of the accounts.

The Act also included e-mail accounts created through Yahoo!, Google, and other Internet sites as social media networks that will be covered by the bill if it will fall through.

Social Media Regulation Act

“Social Media Networks are responsible for ascertaining the veracity of the identity of a social media user. Applicants for social media accounts shall be subjected by the Social Media Networks to effective identity verification in order to ascertain the authenticity of the account.” Section 5 of House Bill No. 5021 read.

The house bill emphasized the shutdown of accounts that are found to be fake or “compromised.” In addition to this, the bill also mandated social media users to exercise their freedom of expression responsibly and justly.

Penalizing Identity Theft

Furthermore, the measure prohibits the use of these social media platforms “using someone else’s identity and presenting himself to the online world as that person whom he is not.” This was stated in Section 4 of House Bill no. 5021. In addition to this, people who own and control “artificial intelligence programs” that launches fake social networking sites or accounts will also be held liable.

Those who intentionally and maliciously commit violations to these will be penalized with imprisonment of six to twelve years and fine ranging from P30,000 to P50,000.