Alternative media groups call on DICT to act on ‘cyberattacks’
Credit to Author: The Manila Times| Date: Tue, 12 Mar 2019 05:19:29 +0000
ALTERNATIVE media groups banded together and staged a protest in front of the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) on Tuesday seeking protection against alleged cyberattacks launched against them.
“Humingi kami ng tulong sa Qurium, isang Sweden based na media foundation para i-host kami at tulungan kami sa protection ng aming mga websites.” (We ask for help from Qurium, a Sweden based media foundation to host and help us for the protection of our websites) Kenneth Guda, editor and multimedia journalist of Pinoy Weekly, in an interview with The Manila Times on World Day Against Cyber Censorship.
Aside from Pinoy Weekly, Altermidya, Bulat, Kodao Producions, and other so-called “advocacy websites” have been targeted by Distributed Denial of Services attacks (DDoS) since December 2018.
“DDos is malicious form of cyber-attack that aims to overload a targeted machine. Once the server is oversaturated, the website will become inaccessible. As a result, additional and legitimate readers of the website are literally “denied” of access,” Altermidya and Bulatlat said in a statement.
“Importante ito kasi today ang world day against cyber censorship at ngayon nasa gitna tayo ng series of attacks on alternative and independent media,” Guda said.
(This is important because today is the World day against cyber censorship and today, we are in the middle of a series of attacks on alternative and independent media.)
The Kabataan Partylist also demanded to intensify the fight for freedom of expression and democratic rights.
“Clearly. the press is and continues to be under attack. Media practitioners and alternative media continue to be attacked in all fronts, from arrests and hate speech to cyber-attacks on websites and online platforms.” Angelica Reyes, Kabataan Partylist National President, said in a statement.
In light of the alleged attacks against press freedom and on the critics of the Duterte administration, alternative media groups demanded the National Computer Emergency Response team (NCERT) and DICT to act on them.
“We demand that they act on the attacks. Otherwise, we will be led to believe that NCERT and DICT are complicit in the attack on press freedom.” Rhea Padilla, National Coordinator of Altermidya said. REVA MARCELO
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