This is a follow-up to my blog post on Friday on the Cybercrime Prevention Law (RA 10175). In that post, I wrote about how people who clamored against the libel provision in the Cybercrime Law because it curtailed their right to free speech may not realize but that social media giants like FACEBOOK have built-in censorship mechanisms already in place.

Put another way, if you have a profile on Facebook and you feel that a post from a “friend” has maligned your honor or has put your character in disrepute, you don’t need to file a case for libel under the Cybercrime Libel provision.  You don’t even need to file a libel complaint under the Revised Penal Code.   If a post that appears on your news feed hurts your sensibilities, you can unsubscribe to that “friend’s” posts.  This means you can’t see the hurtful things alluded to by your “friend.”  If you are not satisfied with that, you can also block the person and you won’t ever have to cross paths with that person ever again on Facebook.

If you feel, however, that the posts are malicious and they can be a cause of action for libel, you can report the timeline.  You have a choice: you can report that the “friend” is annoying you (nakakainis na); or you can report that the person whose timeline you are reporting is merely pretending to be someone else (identity theft or hacking); or you can report the timeline to have an inappropriate cover photo; or that the timeline has an inappropriate profile photo (cyber porn, child porn); or that the person whose timeline you are reporting is harassing you or bullying you. You can even report the timeline because your intellectual property was “taken” or “used” without your permission (plagiarism).

Facebook is proving itself to be a virtual cosmos all of its own with its own netizens; its own territorial jurisdiction; and its own set of netiquette or rules of behavior.  Facebook has its own way of policing accounts which may contain libelous material.

In my own experience, I have frequently posted that I block game invites.  So people who send me a barrage of invitations to join a game should know better now.  I’ve blocked all invitations from them.  I have also blocked several people for posting what I think are inappropriate photos or videos on my wall.  You see, I have friends who are grade school and high school children.  My own children and their classmates, my nephews and nieces have facebook accounts or have access to their parents’ facebook accounts.  I don’t think it is wise for me to allow certain kinds of pictures to be put up on my wall or my news feed for those children to happen upon.

I have repeatedly warned my “friends” on facebook to be circumspect about posting stuff because facebook is a public place.  And if they post lewd photos then I will block them.  To date, I have unsubscribed to “friends” whose posts are always dripping with sarcasm and pettiness.  I didn’t feel good reading their anger and bile at all times of the day at the most trivia things like the wet hair of the lady sitting next to them on the bus. Facebook is supposed to be for “socializing” so we still have to behave and play nice.  Or, if you really want to reconnect deeply with others, use the private message.  If you must agree or disagree, then use the private message.

I have unsubscribed to a friend who posts a daily running commentary about the annoying habits of others around him/her.   That, I thought, made that “friend” seem immature, intolerant and cowardly. I often wonder: can’t s/he calmly tell these people what problem s/he has with them so they can live peaceably with them instead of dumping issues on all of us who are his/her “friends” on facebook?  We have problems of our own and we actually go on facebook to unwind and escape.

I have unsubscribed to one friend for having posted pictures of a homosexual sex act and I have unsubscribed to another friend for having posted pictures of a heterosexual couple engaging in the sexual act in graphic detail that rivals the Kama Sutra.  It would have been better had he attached it to a private message and sent it to me instead of posting it on the wall.  Hubby and I would have laughed out loud at that.  (In fact, I showed the pictures to hubby and we both laughed at it.)  My “friends” who are minors might find it disturbing, not funny.

I have also blocked a friend because he posted photos of what looked like teenage-girls in their brassiere.  When I saw this friend in person, I reminded that friend that posting nearly nude photos of minors might render him liable for child pornography.  I warned that friend that if I see a similar post from him, I will unsubscribe to his posts.

To my teenage students, I say: I think in this day and age, people mistake and misconstrue “cyber-freedom” for “cyber-license.”  To this, Apostle Paul has a very appropriate sound bite.  He said: “All things are lawful for me, but not all things are expedient.”  While the metes and bounds of the virtual world and the social media might still be largely undefined and uncharted, we are not children who can say anything that pops into our heads without thinking of the consequences to ourselves or to others.  At this time that the Cybercrime Prevention Law is still under a TRO and the police and the Department of Justice are desperately trying to come to grips with the reality of crimes on the internet, it’s like the wild wild west out there in cyberspace.  Sometimes, going on facebook feels like I just stepped into the O.K. Corral, right in the middle of a verbal gun fight.

There may be few laws that curb our tendencies to lash out and vent, but really, not all lashing out and venting are expedient.  Apostle Paul sums it up wisely still, I think, when he said, “Let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt.”  Grace is merit given to one who does not deserve it.  Salt gives pleasing flavor to food.

If you are a Christian and you are a regular tourist on the internet and you have made Facebook your home, think on this: “Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord.”  While others who read stuff on our wall may think the things they find there are ok, there is still the issue of whether what we say is acceptable to God.  We are accountable to God for every idle word we say.  We are accountable to God for every barb we let loose and for every drop of bile that drips from the words we use.  Let not our cyber-freedom be turned into cyber-license.

And if a “friend” on facebook uses words to offend you, don’t start a verbal slug fest on facebook, please.  Remember the discipline of the church in Matthew 18.  Go out of your way to talk to that brother or sister who has offended you.  Fix it between the two of you.  If your friend will not listen to you, bring a witness along and speak kindly to that friend.  Only if that friend will still not heed you can you go to the church.  Now more than ever, on our Facebook wall and on our news feed, we are epistles written on fleshy tablets of the human heart.  We are read and seen by others around.  Let us not hide our light under a bushel by thoughtless use of words.  We are called to exhort and reprove, but we are also commanded to always speak the truth in love.