Amid the rising prevalence of malicious and libelous social media posts as the campaign period for the May 13 midterm elections approaches its last week, Senator Dick Gordon warned netizens against committing abuses on social media.
“Don’t abuse the social media. You may think you can post just about anything which are libelous or downright falsehoods. The Revised Penal Code prohibits libel and this had been adopted in the cybercrime law,” Gordon pointed out.
“You may think you can post just about anything which are libelous or downright falsehoods.”
Republic Act 10175 or the Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012 recognizes the vital role of information and communications industries such as content production, telecommunications, broadcasting electronic commerce, and data processing, in the nation’s overall social and economic development and the importance of providing an environment conducive to the development, acceleration, and rational application and exploitation of information and communications technology (ICT) to attain free, easy, and intelligible access to exchange and/or delivery of information.
However, the law also sees the need to protect and safeguard the integrity of computer, computer and communications systems, networks, and databases, and the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of information and data stored therein, from all forms of misuse, abuse, and illegal access by making punishable under the law such conduct or conducts.
The Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012 protects information and data from all forms of misuse, abuse, and illegal access.
Hence, it has adopted sufficient powers to effectively prevent and combat such offenses by facilitating their detection, investigation, and prosecution at both the domestic and international levels, and by providing arrangements for fast and reliable international cooperation.
Punishable acts under the cybercrime law includes: Section 4 (c) (4) Libel -“The unlawful or prohibited acts of libel as defined in Article 355 of the Revised Penal Code, as amended, committed through a computer system or any other similar means which may be devised in the future.
