The Philippines' three biggest telcos are cutting off access to websites that stream school shootings and other extreme violence. PLDT and Smart Communications said on August 21 that they are blocking more than 100 such sites at the network level, and Globe announced the following day that it is doing the same. The move comes days after a student livestreamed a deadly shooting at a Zamboanga City school.
What PLDT and Smart are blocking
PLDT and Smart identified more than 100 websites found hosting or streaming footage of school shootings and other violent content. Because the block happens at the network level, the sites become unreachable for all PLDT Home and Smart subscribers, on any device — there is nothing users need to install or configure.
"This is something we do not tolerate. We have decided to ban these kinds of sites preemptively, as soon as they are discovered," PLDT chief operating officer Butch Jimenez said. The company said the list is not final: it will keep growing as new sites are flagged through its own monitoring and through reports from government agencies, child protection organizations, and parenting communities.
The effort builds on the group's long-running program that blocks child sexual abuse material (CSAM) on its networks, which PLDT says is part of a broader commitment to keeping its services safe for children and young people.
Globe joins the blocklist push
Globe Telecom confirmed it will also block websites streaming school shootings and violent content. "We have a responsibility to help make the online environment safer, especially for children and young people," Globe general counsel Froilan Castelo said.
Globe has been running a similar campaign against CSAM for years, coordinating with government and international organizations. In 2025 alone, the company reported blocking 438,446 domains and URLs carrying child sexual abuse material, backed by about $2.7 million (around ₱167 million) in content-filtering investments.
The Zamboanga shooting behind the move
The announcements follow the August 18 attack at the junior high school of Ateneo de Zamboanga University in Zamboanga City. A Grade 9 student shot and killed a Grade 10 schoolmate before taking his own life, and two other people were wounded. Zamboanga Mayor Khymer Adan Olaso said the gunman livestreamed the attack through a body-worn camera, and Reuters verified livestream footage of the shooter inside the school.
Investigators traced the .40-caliber pistol used in the attack to the shooter's father, a customs officer who has since been relieved of duty; a second firearm he carried was also licensed to the father. It was the country's second fatal school shooting in about two months.
"Our schools are where we entrust our children to learn, to grow and to dream about the lives ahead of them," President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. said after the attack. "They must also be among the safest places in our country."
What this means for Filipino families
For most households, the change needs no action: if your internet comes from PLDT, Smart, or Globe, the flagged sites simply stop loading. The bigger effect is on how fast violent footage can circulate after an incident, since the telcos say they will now block preemptively instead of waiting for a government order — a notable shift, because the Zamboanga livestream spread before platforms could take it down.
The move also lands in a wider push to police harmful content in the country. The Cybercrime Investigation and Coordinating Center has asked Congress for jurisdiction over social media and streaming platforms, while the PNP has stepped up cyberpatrols against illegal online content. Network-level blocking is not airtight — determined users can still route around it — but it raises the barrier for the casual sharing that gives this material its reach.
