Why legit Adult Websites were blocked for child porn

Earlier today, we broke the news that local ISPs have started blocking popular porn sites like PornHub, XVideos, etc. Not all porn sites are blocked and not all ISPs have implemented the block as of this time but we reckon it will be a matter of time when all the ISPs will comply with this demand.

The actual target of these blocks are basically child porn as mandated by Republic Act 9775 or the Anti-Child Pornography Law which was passed in 2009 (yes, it took that long for the law to be implemented).

Back in 2014, we also reported that the NTC sent out a memorandum circular requiring ISPs and telcos to block sites with child porn (see story here). While everyone agreed that sites that contains child porn should be banned or blocked, many complained that the ones that were blocked just recently were all legit adult sites.

With the implementation of the rules and regulations, ISPs will have to install carrier-grade monitoring programs to identify and filter out porn content. This could include websites and blogs that publishes porn content, video streaming services that allows uploading and viewing of pornographic video, file sharing sites and webcam services that facilitates the same.

So we asked around and several inside sources explained the rationale behind the actions:

• The website does not need to have ALL child porn. A single page, photo or video that features child porn already qualifies the entire site to be blocked.
• Filtering is supposed to be the more logical approach but it is very hard or tedious to block specific content or pages than blocking the entire site or domain. And since these sites are not under the Philippine jurisdiction, there’s no other legal way but to just block them.
• Around 7 to 8 out of 10 complaints sent to the NBI Cybercrime Division in the past years were about sex scandals and un-authorized publication of nude materials, many of them are prominent personalities or showbiz personalities. Thousands of complaints are still currently pending with the NBI.
• Some of these sex scandals or nude materials involve high-school and college students, most of which are technically under-age or minors. These scandalous photos or videos are uploaded into popular sites like PornHub or XVideos.
• Even if legit adult sites do not publish child porn, the users are the ones doing it which makes it hard for these porn sites to monitor and remove. Others may have an internal team to weed out these submissions but the sheer volume of them makes it much harder and costly.

There you go — user contributions of pinoy sex scandals involving minors are the main culprit why the legit adult sites were also included in the ban.