Watchdog: Don’t make legitimate Discord users collateral damage

MANILA, Philippines—An anti-scam advocacy campaign organization opposed the blocking of social media platform ‘Discord’ in the Philippines.

The group believes blanket blocking affects Filipinos who use the platform for work.

It also said legitimate users should not be made “collateral damage.”

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Discord is a social media platform for creating and participating in online communities. It was originally developed as a voice-chat service for gamers.

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“Blanket blocking is a reactive policy that affects not only bad actors,” said Scam Watch Pilipinas in a statement on Thursday.

The scam watchdog added that the policy affects “Filipinos who legitimately use Discord for virtual assistance, freelancing, education, technology, gaming, content creation and professional communities.”

“Target the harmful content. Target the criminals. Do not make legitimate Filipino users collateral damage,” it added.

While acknowledging government’s concerns over platform’s handling of harmful or illegal activities, Scam Watch Pilipinas said such issues should not automatically result in an entire platform being blocked.

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“This reactive approach must stop before it normalizes increasingly draconian restrictions on digital platforms,” the group said.

Scam Watch Pilipinas renewed its call for an Asean-wide effort to strengthen accountability among major technology companies, noting that online harms often cross national borders.

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It urged the government to pursue measures that would encourage technology companies to cooperate with authorities in addressing cybercrime.

“What the country needs is a strategic, proportionate and long-term approach that protects Filipinos while holding global platforms accountable,” said the watchdog

Earlier, the Cybercrime Investigation and Coordinating Center of the Department of Information and Communications Technology had given online platforms Discord and Reddit a deadline to establish a local presence and coordinate with authorities 

Heightened security measures online follow after the country’s third school shooting in three months. /apl