Cybercrime Bill. Your thoughts?

By K31
Philippines
September 17, 2012 8:43pm CST
And I read yesterday that the Cybercrime Bill is now signed by Pres. Noynoy and I think it's high time that we finally had one but the "Online Libel" kind of bothered me. Won't it affect people's "Freedom of Expression" especially that netizens would voice out their opinions and thoughts online (Twitter is of PRIME example). Personally, I think they should polish it up a bit and fix some bits and pieces of the bill. Again, this is just my opinion. What about you guys?
2 people like this
11 responses
@nhieleiko (109)
• Philippines
19 Sep 12
We, us writers, bloggers and etc. will minimize our freedom in some things that we want to express. I think this was approved because of what happened to Sen. Sotto. The government thought that he was cyber-bullied. For us, from now on, we should be careful on we post. This law can put us to jail in 12 years (just heard last night on the news).
• Philippines
19 Sep 12
Typography error.. "as" instead of "us" :P
@rog0322 (2829)
• Cagayan De Oro, Philippines
18 Sep 12
Hi, Then how do you get the offender on the World Wide Web? Catch him on the net while he is there with a net? Seriously, this law need cyber police to enforce the provisions therein. I think the government should consider hiring IT professionals regardless of age limit to help them in this matter, it is really a huge undertaking. Advanced civilizations still have a lot of headaches going after cyber criminals, how much more for us who has just begun? Given the sorry state our Republic is in, I doubt if it can be enforced at all.
@jenny1015 (13366)
• Philippines
19 Sep 12
The only way to catch them is by checking on the IP address that they have used, then it can be tracked down where exactly the person comes from. The only difficulty here is when the criminals would be using an internet cafe. Proper identification is not possible coz when you use any of their computers, the owner or manager doesn't ask for any identification or id. Maybe placing CCTVs on every internet cafe can help.
@KrauseHome (36448)
• United States
23 Sep 12
Personally with something like this it does delve into people's Freedom of Speech especially if they are going to check all the sites, and how can they really regulate everything as many times they will be talking with people from all over the world. And if one country is doing it how can they protect themselves from others?
@SIMPLYD (90722)
• Philippines
20 Sep 12
I am glad that finally there's a bill for cyber crimes. It high time that we have that so those abusive posters can be curbed at what they are saying on the net. For me, if you know that you are rightfully saying what you are trying to mean, you will not be affected and say that it's a violation of our freedom of expression.
@mrsuniega (786)
• Philippines
19 Sep 12
this is the latest talk of the town. well a lot of experts says that this bill is timely as there are numerous account in the news concerning the cyber abuse. there are really pros and cons about this new bill. there is this new law about libel, well for me its true that the libel in the cybercrime law can be used by politician and celebrities which are very active in the social network world. as there are a lot of critics in the social world, it can be used as a sue to those who give insights and opinions.
@kris3rdE (156)
• Philippines
20 Sep 12
We should always remember that freedom always come with responsibilities. Having freedom doesn't mean that we can say or do whatever we want. Freedom of Expression is important but how we express our opinions and thought is very important. Some people take advantage the Freedom of Expression to directly hurt or ruin a person/s. Some people take advantage Libel law to gain personally agenda. But we have our court to measure the truth. Have a great day!
@rsa101 (38166)
• Philippines
18 Sep 12
I think it is high time that we have this one since many are getting victimized by these cyber bullies. Well with regards to the "online libel" is not disturbing with me for as long as the guidelines and criterion is the same as our "offline libel" law we have right now. I think we should be careful of what we say online and offline. If we are not happy with what a person is doing or saying we can say our opposition to it verbally without having to resort to libelous words or cursing the person heavily. I think that is not infringing our freedom to speech since "freedom" still has limitations as to what is acceptable and not acceptable to a certain society.
@freymind (1351)
• Philippines
18 Sep 12
I agree with you on this one. They need to make amendments with the bill to make it more palatable to the public and will not be taken advantage of by other entities (celebrities or politicians).
@jenny1015 (13366)
• Philippines
18 Sep 12
The proposed bill can be very timely as their are numerous crimes on the net everyday. And yes, they should be able to make this bill really clear enough to set the parameters so that this could be beneficial for all.
• Philippines
18 Sep 12
Forgive me for a delayed reply but I was thinking along the same lines and I had to resort to an analysis so that I may not find myself ignorant of this new law. The analysis I subscribe to was found in this link - http://www.interaksyon.com/article/43328/analysis--the-cybercrime-law-and-how-it-affects-your-freedom-of-expression. I find the analysis quite very heavy to understand but in time, it will be quite a easy for understanding. Nevertheless, I do hope that our freedom of expression will not be at stake here. It has been 40 years since the Marcos declared Martial Law and the people at that time were in sore need of freedom, especially the freedom fo expression. if Aquino did sign this without that in mind, it quite a sorry testament to what his parents tried to campaign for at that time. However, I do see that there is something should be done to address cyber bullying. I just hope it is not under the expense of one senator in question. We do have something in our Bill of Rights where no law can be passed without infringing the said freedom. But I think we should also not that there should also be responsibilities in the said freedom. The most glaring crime, if there is libel. It is already hard to prove libel in an offline environment, let alone in an alien one where everybody can have a username and IP address are often coupled with many other subscribers. Even if there is a trace, there still need for the proof of malice. I think I dabbled on too much. However, I think that the internet should still be protected with bills and laws endearing freedom fo expression. It is, probably, the only place where people had a audience of their own, without paying high rates.
@romzee (937)
• Philippines
18 Sep 12
We, having a cybercrime law is a welcome news. But do these law will make our netizens more safe in the cyberworld or this is just a way our government will restrict out cyberfreedom. I think, one of the main issue here is online libel. Regarding this I can't make an opinion because I really don't know the content of this law.