FR. SHAY CULLEN
HOW MANY thousands of young people have been psychologically damaged, groomed sexually and abused online by the sex shows they are forced to participate in to gratify the sexual urges of local and foreign pedophiles? The pedophiles entice and pay relatives of the child victims to sexually abuse their own children or neighbors to gratify themselves while viewing small Filipino children being sexually abused online. All this by live streaming over the ISPs and media platforms. Some teenagers are lured to expose themselves in sexually suggestive poses to a person they come to trust online but is an extortionist demanding money or sex. Some commit suicide.
This is allegedly what the accused priest Father Karole Reward Israel, now jailed and on trial in Cagayan, Northern Philippines, did. He admits the acts of grooming and sexual encounters but claims it was consensual yet he secretly videoed the alleged rape and sexual assault of the teenage victim. He then blackmailed her to continue being abused without complaining by threatening to expose the video online. Before the internet and social media platforms, this would not have been possible. The enablers of such crimes like the ISPs must be held accountable.
Thousands of children are victims of exploitation and many can’t pay and some commit suicide. All this online child abuse can be detected and blocked by high powered AI-software. The Philippine law demands that the telecommunications corporations (telcos) and ISPs block that child abuse material, even online streaming, by installing AI-powered detection and blocking software. Apparently, they are not doing it. The telcos say they are effectively working with the Internet Watch Foundation and blocking or reporting thousands of offending websites.
However, they must install the powerful AI-blocking software that enables them to identify bad content, filter and block it and capture the images and report to the police. It seems they don’t install that software which some experts say would slow down the Internet and slowdown the fast- flowing money into the bank accounts of the telcos. The Philippines is a hub of such online abuse and it continues according to international police. The child abuse continues as reports are still coming in from the international law enforcement agencies, investigators and monitoring non-government organizations.
The case of three 10-year-old boys who watched child sexual abuse on a cellphone and then went and raped a six-year old girl shows the terrible effect it has on children. There are hundreds of thousands of child abusive blogs, websites and illegal child abuse images and videos passing through the telcos and ISP servers daily. This is an alleged admission of failure to take effective measures with AI software and start blocking the child abuse streaming and videos that pass through the servers. They could save thousands of children from abuse if they decided to do so.
Unlike the weak laws or absence of them in the USA, the Philippine law protecting children from online sexual abuse is clear and strong but it seems there is no government agency that has the courage or commitment to enforce it. Do they have blood on their hands, too? (www.preda.org)/PN
