NEWS UPDATE | Ex-DICT official seeks legal action over Discord block
In a Facebook post Thursday evening, Jeffrey Ian Dy said he and his lawyer had sent demand letters to the DICT, CICC and NTC, asking the agencies to stop blocking Discord and other applications in the future.
Former Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) undersecretary Jeffrey Ian Dy said he and civic groups are preparing to challenge the government’s blocking of Discord even after authorities lifted the restriction Thursday.
In a Facebook post Thursday evening, Dy said he and his lawyer had sent demand letters to the DICT, Cybercrime Investigation and Coordinating Center (CICC) and National Telecommunications Commission (NTC), asking the agencies to stop blocking Discord and other applications in the future.
“This may look moot and academic, but this afternoon, my lawyer and I sent demand letters to DICT, CICC and NTC to ask them to cease and desist from blocking Discord now, or any other apps in the future,” Dy said.
Dy said the lawyers were studying possible remedies before the Supreme Court, including petitions for mandamus or certiorari. He said the legal action would question the constitutionality of website blocking in light of the Supreme Court’s ruling in Disini v. Secretary of Justice, G.R. No. 203335.
He also questioned whether the government’s action remained subject to challenge despite the lifting of the Discord block.
“Our lawyers are also now studying what to file (Mandamus, certiorari?) before the SC especially since the unlawful order to block is continuing especially with the declaration of DICT that they only gave an extension to Reddit, Discord, and possibly even Meta/Facebook,” Dy said.
The CICC lifted the Discord block Thursday following a meeting with the platform. DICT Secretary Henry Aguda said Discord had committed to taking immediate steps to strengthen child-safety measures, while CICC Executive Director Renato “Aboy” Paraiso said the platform agreed to establish a “green lane” for direct coordination with Philippine authorities and to help identify and monitor threat actors.
The block took effect Wednesday evening after the CICC told the National Telecommunications Commission to implement the restriction. The CICC had earlier given Discord and Reddit 24 hours to establish a Philippine presence or face possible restrictions.
Dy said he also met with groups including BetterGov.PH and Democracy.Net.PH, which he said were considering filing their own petition before the Supreme Court. He added that other groups were also planning to challenge what he described as an overreach by the DICT.
“This drama has to stop especially when the economic and civil rights of people are being violated,” Dy said.
“This is no longer about Discord. This is already about our freedom in the internet, which for some of us, brings food to the table.”
Dy has previously criticized the blocking because of its potential effect on Filipino gig workers. In a Sept. 24 interview, he said between 15,000 and 25,000 Filipino gig workers use Discord to find temporary jobs, including work as virtual assistants and online computer encoders.
He also argued that online harm should not be treated solely as a cybersecurity issue, saying the problem is multidimensional and requires measures beyond technology and law enforcement.
“Cybersecurity is when there is an attack on confidentiality, integrity and availability of computer resources,” Dy said. “Online harm is a problem that is multidimensional.”
Dy’s planned legal challenge comes despite the government’s decision to lift the Discord restriction after what Aguda described as successful negotiations.
The government has said the intervention was intended to protect Filipino children from online threats, including grooming, radicalization and nihilistic violent extremism. Aguda said the ban was imposed solely for child safety, while Paraiso apologized to users affected by the hours-long restriction.
The Supreme Court’s Disini ruling struck down Section 19 of Republic Act 10175, which authorized the Department of Justice to restrict access to computer data that it found prima facie to violate the law. Dy has cited the decision as a basis for questioning unilateral government blocking of online resources.
Whether Disini directly applies to the NTC action against Discord, however, remains a legal question for the courts.
For Dy and the groups he said were preparing legal action, the issue has now expanded beyond Discord to the broader question of government authority to restrict access to online platforms.
Full disclosure: All news articles published on the TechSabado website are written by human journalists, unless otherwise specified. Final text editing is also performed by human editors, with artificial intelligence (AI) used only to assist with additional grammar and style guide corrections..
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