Just a few days after Congress approved its proposed Social Media Ban for Teens bill (House Bill No. 11566) on second reading, the Senate has approved their own version (Senate Bill No. 2424, aka Child Online Safety and Protection Act) on its third and final reading. While both have the same intent on making the internet a safer space for teens, Congress and Senate go for a different approach–with the latter being more aggressive.
What’s different from the Senate and Congress version?
The biggest difference between the Senate and Congress versions of the Social Media Ban for Teens bill is the age restrictions. The Congress version bans social media access to those under 13 years old, while those from 13 to 17 years old are allowed with certain restrictions. These include prohibiting them from accessing short-form content, livestreaming without parental supervision or enhanced moderation features, and access to conversational AI bots and generative image/video features.
The Senate version, on the other hand, is more aggressive as it gives a blanket ban to social media access for teens under 18 years old. While it aims to drastically reduce youth exposure to cyberbullying and online grooming, Senator Risa Hontiveros made valid points on why she is the only one who voted against the Senate’s version of the Social Media Ban bill for Teens. In her post, Hontiveros said that while a 13-year-old and 17-year-old are both minors, “they are not developmentally equivalent.”
What’s common between the two versions?
Both the Senate and Congress versions require all social media platforms to implement mandatory age verification standards that is effective and meet the standards of the government. One of the ways this will work is with the proposal of integrating the National ID for verification.
Both bills also assign the DICT–together with other agencies like the NTC, CICC, and NPC–in ensuring that these safety measures are properly implemented by social media platforms or else they will face penalties and fines. They also requires all social media platforms and foreign tech companies to have local, physical presence in the Philippines so that the government can easily coordinate with them to ensure that regulations are implemented properly.
Both versions also have exemptions, which include educational and productivity applications, news outlets, and basic communication tools with the proper safeguard mechanisms.
What happens next?
Both the Senate and Congress will reconcile the differences in their respective versions of the social media ban for teens bill through a Bicam Committee. Delegates from both chambers will negotiate line-by-line to resolve key disagreements—particularly regarding the age threshold, exemptions to the ban, and enforcement mechanisms.
There is no fixed timeline for how long the Bicam Committee will take to reconcile these differences, but a conservative estimate would be anywhere between 2 to 6 weeks—unless President Bongbong Marcos certifies the measure as urgent, which would accelerate deliberations.
Once the Bicam Committee reconciles the differences into a single, unified text, both the Senate and Congress must separately vote to ratify the Bicam Report in their respective plenary sessions. After both chambers ratify the unified bill, an enrolled copy is certified and signed by the Senate President and the Speaker of the House. The finalized bill is then submitted to the President, who has 30 days from receipt either to:
