Kapamilya actor Paulo Avelino broke his silence to give his opinion on the recent ban of US tech platform Discord in the country earlier this week. On his X (formerly Twitter) account, the My Love Will Make You Disappear star expressed his frustration about it and called out people involved to “fix the actual problem” instead.
Discord has ordered by the Cybercrime Investigation and Coordinating Center (CICC) to appoint a resident agent in the country to speed up cooperation with the law enforcement.
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This comes after school shootings were linked to “extremist” networks that have used various online platforms such as Discord to entice school children to commit violence. A third school shooting was recorded earlier this month at the Banga National High School in South Cotabato.
“First world countries: Discord, add age verification. Philippines: Discord, bye.🤡,” Paulo wrote.
The Kapamilya star reasoned out how Discord is used by thousands of people to communicate with one another and hasn’t been used for violence. He maintained that blocking the app will only lead the perpetrators to use a different platform.
“People use Discord for work meetings, school, and running small businesses. Block it and they all get hit, while bad actors just move to another app,” he maintained.
While he agrees that the safety and welfare of children are top priority, banning the platform isn’t fixing the actual problem.
“Child safety matters. So fix the actual problem, not just the easiest target!” he ended.
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Fans of the Kapamilya actor showed their support for his sentiments in the reply section of his post.
“Nakakapagod pag puro topshelf bobong boomers namumuno at gumagawa ng desisyon para sa lahat. Pang-tamaran lagi solusyon, kung hindi band-aid. Out of touch lahat,” a fan wrote.
“My take on this issue is that discord isn't the problem, coz it's just a digital backyard where they happen to be meeting up .. if you ban it, they will just move to whatever platform exists to coordinate- WA, Viber, Telegram etc. Banning the app doesn't solve the behavior, it just makes them smarter at hiding it from you and will completely forget what digital citizenship means. target the real culprit,” a fan added.
Meanwhile, Discord has yet to release a statement about the potential ban as of this writing.