NEWS | The Cybercrime Investigation and Coordinating Center, an agency under the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT), has given Reddit and Discord 24 hours to name someone in the Philippines who can be reached and held responsible for what happens on their platforms. The letters went out this week. If the apps do not comply, the CICC says it may work with other agencies to restrict or block access nationwide.
The order comes days after the third school shooting since June, this time at a high school in South Cotabato. Investigators have raised concerns that online spaces on these platforms are being used to groom minors, spread radical ideas and push violent content toward children. Officials say the pattern is now too frequent to treat as routine.
Beyond naming a local contact, Reddit and Discord must explain how they protect users and submit real plans for checking ages, reacting faster to reports and cutting off harmful content aimed at kids. Right now, if a threat traces back to either platform, there is no one local that authorities can call directly. That gap is what this order is meant to close.
This follows earlier pushes by DICT on Meta and Roblox, which agreed to tighter child safety rules. In BMN's view, setting a 24 hour deadline is the easy part. Whether platforms built for a global user base can stand up local accountability that fast, and whether it changes anything in time for the next warning sign, is the part still unproven.
The bigger test is not whether Reddit and Discord answer this letter. It is whether naming a contact person actually stops the next threat before it reaches a classroom.
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