Cyberlibel’s collateral damage

Eagle Eyes

By Dean Tony La Viña

The recent passage of Republic Act 10175, the Cybercrime Prevention Act, has raised such uproar as to attract even the attention of Western news services. Triggering the uproar is the linking of libel (defamation through publication) in the Revised Penal Code to RA 10175. This allows for the prosecution of libel committed through the Internet as the communications device—while also making the act of libel itself (independent of using the Internet to commit said libel) independently punishable under the RPC. In layman’s terms, that’s two charges a defendant will have to face in court. In relation to this is the “take-down” clause allowing the Department of Justice to shut down violating Internet sites without a court order, and Section 6, automatically raising the penalty imposed one degree higher.

This controversy has practically sparked a war waged by Internet “hacktivists” who use their skills to deface and disrupt Philippine government Web sites, in a shame-and-inconvenience campaign, as in the Internet and the outside world, ordinary netizens have vocally expressed their disapproval. Cooler heads, meanwhile, have filed Supreme Court petitions and legislative action seeking to modify or annul contentious portions of RA 10175.  I would join those cooler heads. I believe that by expressly identifying libel as a crime that can be committed via the Internet (which further enhances the problematic criminalization of libel itself), the Cybercrime Law has an inadvertent “chilling effect” on the free speech rights not just of the press, but alarmingly of ordinary Filipino citizens.

In the past, accusations of libel have been effectively limited mostly to members of the professional press, because the act of publication required to define an act as libel was an act that can only be feasibly executed by print and broadcast media. Moreover, the dissemination power of the media to make an impact on public opinion was greater than that of ordinary people, rumor mills notwithstanding. The published pronouncements of a press member, for example, would be distinct from the chattering of the masses, even if both say the same thing.

With the rise of the Internet and social media, however, ordinary citizens have gained that ability once reserved to the press. Facebook likes and Twitter trending topics have become nearly as powerful (though not as credible or in-depth) a barometer for the social pulse as newspaper editorials and poll results. Blogs have given netizens space once enjoyed only by columnists to weigh in on the issues of the day, and find their audience. Finally, as the accusations of plagiarism of bloggers against Senator Vicente “Tito” Sotto show, our Internet-posted written work can be considered publications in and of themselves; or at the very least, our pronouncements written, recorded, and widely disseminated. Yet in truth, the average netizen’s Internet activity doesn’t really compare to the aforementioned powerful pronouncements of traditional media; they’re more properly the masses’ chattering, with all its colorful language and layman’s imprecision—except with greater reach than before.

Seemingly, RA 10175’s libel provision, a late addition to the original draft, based on records of legislative proceedings, overlooks this distinction. It is already lamentable that the traditional media man can be sent to jail, when civil penalties would be more fitting: the United Nations Human Rights Commission has commented as much in the past. This “libel loophole” in the Cybercrime Law can now be exploited by unscrupulous men in power to suppress regular free speech over the Internet, all by taking offense to critical statements they claims to be false and malicious, and through threat of imprisonment and site take-down. (Let’s also not forget that such men would have the resources to sustain a protracted legal battle.) Yet such the free flow of information, even through the masses’ chattering over the Internet, is critical for democracy’s vibrancy. Indeed, truthful information, but verified by facts freely offered and observed in the public arena, not by intimidation of doubters.

When we come down to it, after all passion and reason are spent, it is because of the expanded space and amplified volume the Internet gives to people’s voices, and libel’s criminal status in Philippine law, that fear has struck the hearts of Filipino netizens. Legislators might have meant well in considering libel that can be committed on the Internet, but in seeking to suppress it, they are shooting at fleeting shadows. What they hit is not the informed word of a journalist who fails the obligation for truth-telling, but ordinary people who want to air their gripes and share their opinions, nowadays through retweets and likes.

It would be wise to listen to the chattering masses in this case. Freedom of speech is the first defense against despotism, and the first tool of accountability. The libel provision of the Cybercrime Law does not know the collateral damage it can cause.

Facebook Page: Dean Tony La Vina Twitter: tonylavs