FACT CHECK: No P50-M fine on users for improper social media use under House bill

House Bill No. 9965, or the proposed Children’s Social Media Safety Act, seeks to impose fines on social media platforms violating child safety standards — not on individual users

AT A GLANCE

• Claims of a P50-million fine for improper social media use by individual Filipinos are false.
• Proposed legislation focuses on fines for social media platforms for violations related to child safety, not individual users.
• Recent measures aim to regulate social media due to concerns over child welfare, but do not impose fines on users.

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Claim: A P50-million fine will be imposed on individual Filipinos for improper use of social media, specifically Facebook. 

Rating: FALSE

Why we fact-checked this: Multiple posts are circulating online that a supposed P50-million fine will be imposed on users who will “not use Facebook properly,” as translated from Filipino. 

Among the posts Rappler found on Facebook, the one with the highest engagement was published by sports page SportsTalk PH, garnering around 98,000 reactions, 20,800 comments, and 4,200 shares.

The post use images of House Speaker Bojie Dy, House Senior Deputy Speaker Ferdinand Hernandez, House Majority Leader Sandro Marcos, House Deputy Speaker David Suarez, and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Text overlaid on the graphic reads: “P50 million multa sa mga Pinoy na hindi gagamitin ng tama ang Facebook, ipapatupad ng gobyerno.”

(The government will impose a P50 million fine on Filipinos who do not use Facebook properly.)

The post’s caption describes two proposed measures on social media use and regulation: House Bill No. 9965, or the proposed Children’s Social Media Safety Act, and House Bill No. 4786 or the Social Media Platform Franchise Act. 

Another post, published by blog page Lee Azipar, also uses similar visuals and contains the same text. The post currently has around 10,200 reactions, 4,000 comments, and 408 shares.

The facts: Neither proposed measure seeks to impose a P50-million fine on individual social media users. 

House Bill No. 9965, filed on June 29, 2026, by Dy and Marcos, introduces provisions that prohibit children below 13 years old from accessing and using social media and imposes fines on social media platforms that fail to comply with child safety and enforcement rules. 

Contrary to the claim, the fines apply to social media platforms, not individual users. They are imposed for violations of the bill’s specific child protection provisions and platform obligations, not for a blanket offense of “improper use” of social media.

These fines vary depending on the violation. Social media platforms may face fines of P20 million to P50 million for violating the bill’s platform obligations and enforcement requirements. Additional penalties ranging from P5 million to P10 million may be imposed on platforms that fail to act on requests to remove prohibited accounts. Repeat offenders may even face temporary access restrictions or a ban from operating in the Philippines.

While the caption on the SportsTalk PH post points out some factual details regarding the bill, it failed to clarify who would be affected by the proposed fines. A portion of its caption also repeats the false claim that Filipino Facebook users, rather than social media platforms, would be subject to the proposed measures.

Social media restrictions: There have been recent attempts to regulate social media platforms, primarily due to concerns over child welfare in light of incidents of school shootings in the country and the reported rise of nihilistic violent extremism cases. 

While House Bill No. 9965 focuses on children’s safety on social media, House Bill No. 4786 proposes to require social media platforms to secure a congressional franchise before they could operate in the Philippines. While Malacañang welcomed the proposal, there are concerns over the proposed measure’s grant of regulatory powers to government bodies over platform obligations, including content moderation on social media platforms. – Lance Ariel Bustos/Rappler 

Lance Ariel Bustos is a campus journalist from Santa Rosa City, Laguna, studying Political Science and Philippine Media Studies at De La Salle University Manila. An Aries Rufo Journalism Fellow for 2026, he is an editor-at-large of The LaSallian.

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