Five things to know about the social media ban for children under 13

The House of Representatives just approved and consolidated the Children’s Social Media and Online Gaming Safety Act. Here are five things you need to know about the new Act.

No social media accounts for children under 13 years old

Social media platforms and covered services are prohibited from allowing children under 13 to create or maintain an account. If a platform discovers an account belonging to an underage user, it must disable it immediately and take steps to prevent the child from simply signing up again with a different email. The technical obligation is on the platform, not the parent.

Users between 13 to 17 will not have infinite scroll, targeted ads, and other ‘predatory’ features

Users aged 13 to 17 can have accounts, but platforms must redesign their interfaces for the non-algorithm feed. Endless scrolling, autoplay, and short-form video loops — features explicitly engineered to extend session time — are prohibited for this age group. So are intrusive notifications, targeted advertising based on behavioral profiling, precise geolocation tracking, and direct messaging from unknown adults. These settings are going to be on by default and not opt-in. Whether a version of these social media platforms can be utilized by adults is not yet known.

The law calls this Safety-by-Design and Safety-by-Default where the child is at the center of the discussion and is to be protected. 

All social media platforms need to establish an office in the Philippines

In the past, tech companies would use the hurdle of not technically operating in the Philippines as a legal loophole. With this act, any social media service that operates in the country needs a physical office. 

Under the new Act, if a platform is accessible in the Philippines, it has 90 days to register with the SEC and appoint a designated compliance officer who is a resident of the Philippines. 

Severe penalties for platforms for non-compliance

The Act creates the Office for Children’s Social Media and Digital Safety under the DICT, functioning as a technical regulator with the authority to audit platforms’ internal systems, verify whether age assurance measures actually work in practice, and issue notices of violation when they don’t. The Office can order what they deem as predatory features to be restricted or suspended immediately, before a full investigation concludes.

The NTC handles the financial penalties from fines ranging from ₱2 million for a first violation up to ₱50 million for serious, gross, or systematic failures. 

It does not cover gaming in general, just gaming interactions

Despite having “Online Gaming” in the title, the law targets the social layers of gaming platforms such as chat, livestreaming, content sharing — not actual gameplay or game mechanics.