Philippines cyber law suspended

The Philippines court has suspended a controversial law targeting cybercrime, the new law, which is recently suspended Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012, came into effect earlier this month. The main goal of this law was to prevent online child pornography, identity theft and spamming.

The Supreme Court issued a temporary restraining order from being enforced after 15 petitions questioning were legality filed against the act, but the protesters say that the legislation could be used to target government critics and pop down the freedom of speech in the country.

The new act states that a person found guilty of libelous comments online, including comments made on social networks such as Facebook and Twitter or blogs, could be fined or jailed.

The act is also designed to prevent cybersex, defined as “sexually explicit chat over the internet in which people perform sexual acts in front of webcams for internet clients”.

The government officials to search and seize data from people’s online accounts and the law generated a number of protests – anonymous protesters hacked into the government’s websites and the journalists held rallies against the law.                                                                       WATCH MORE & READ