A Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) official proposed last Wednesday the creation of an MTRCB-like agency that will help monitor internet content due to the current rise in text scams and spam.
DICT Undersecretary Alexander Ramos, who also leads the department’s Cybercrime Investigation and Coordination Center, shared the proposal during the senate hearing to address the text scams.
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For those who are not familiar, the MTRCB, or the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board, is responsible for the classification of TV shows and movies.
Ramos is proposing to lawmakers the idea of creating a rating system for online content like videos, websites, and apps, so the government can properly inform the public regarding the risks they may face when consuming such content.
“The content creators could be anybody who wants to put information online. How do we categorize them? High risk, low risk, medium risk? There are certain content creators who really protect their subscribers or their readers. But we don’t have, kumbaga sa TV, wala tayong MTRCB. We should have the same,” said the DICT undersecretary.
Moreover, the day after the hearing, the DICT apparently held an interagency meeting to talk about “this pandemic of text scams.”
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To help fight text scams, congress will also consolidate different bills to help find the recent text scams. The issue may also accelerate the progress of the SIM Card Registration bill, which was vetoed by then-President Rodrigo Duterte.
Meanwhile, Representative Joey Salceda of Albay is asking Globe, Smart, and DITO to give law enforcement agencies an easy-to-remember single unified hotline so that people can easily report text scams and cybercrime they may face.
Duterte vetoed the last bill because it was tied to social media identity registration. This whole rating thing sounds equally misguided. As far as text scams, they could do a lot more to stop them at the telco level. I’m know they’re working on that. Also, pandemic vs epidemic.