CICC extends Discord, Reddit compliance timelines after companies respond - Rappler

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MEETING. Officials of the Cybercrime Investigation and Coordinating Center talk to officials of Reddit over a video call.

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MANILA, Philippines – The Cybercrime Investigation and Coordinating Center (CICC) extended the time given to messaging and communications platform Discord and social discussion platform Reddit after the two companies had responded to an ultimatum to set up a presence in the Philippines within 24 hours.

According to a post on its website and on Facebook on Wednesday, September 23, CICC Executive Director Undersecretary Renato Paraiso said he gave Reddit an extension following a meeting with company officials on measures to strengthen cooperation.

Meanwhile, Discord reached out to the agency in a letter signaling willingness to discuss its current user-safety measures as it relates to teenagers.

Reddit vice president of policy Jessica Ashooh, deputy general counsel Leslie Liu, and policy and regulatory affairs manager Vijay Pamarathi talked with the agency, discussing the potential establishment of what it called “green lanes” — direct channels for Philippine authorities to flag potentially harmful content for fast review and possible removal.

According to the CICC, “These would cover content involving online sexual abuse and exploitation of children (OSAEC), child abuse and exploitation materials (CSAEM), scams, misinformation, harmful content, and materials associated with Nihilistic Violent Extremism (NVE).”

Reddit also committed to establishing an office in the Philippines, as well as creating a team to coordinate with the CICC, but did not give a timeline for this action.

Following the meeting, Paraiso said, “We decided to grant them an extension since they responded within the 24 hours and we want to give them the opportunity to work with us because what we want is accountability and a clear mechanism for government to coordinate with the platforms.”

Discord reached out to Paraiso through a letter, showing a willingness to work with the CICC to protect minors from exploitation, grooming, and exposure to violent content.

The letter said they were prepared to brief the CICC on its newly rolled out Teen Default Experience globally. According to Discord senior public policy advisor Vasundhara Singh, the new system lets users — who cannot be confidently placed into a particular age group through account-levels signals — confirm their age using privacy-preserving methods, including on-device facial age estimation. It added that biometric data would not be stored by Discord.

Discord also offered to brief the CICC on its Family Center tools as well as its Kodex system, which allows law enforcement agencies to submit lawful takedown and data requests and get fast-tracked responses.

Tech advocacy group Democracy.net.ph on Tuesday evening called the government’s actions “performative theater” as the CICC, as a unit under the Department of Information and Communications Technology, has no mandate to ban social media platforms.

“Under our democratic system, only courts can restrict freedoms. The direction that CICC is taking is heading towards the Great Firewall of China model,” it added. – Rappler.com