FG moves to regulate social media space

NUJ supports move, CSOs kick, lawyers differ ‘Only anarchists will kick against plan’  

The on how to inject Federal Government says it is working sanity into the social media space which, according to it, is totally out of control today.

Addressing journalists in Abuja yesterday, Minister of Information and Culture Lai Mohammed said the social media at present constituted real danger to the unity of the country.

Daily Trust recalls that an attempt during the first tenure of President Muhammadu Buhari to regulate the social media was rebuffed by many Nigerians who argued that the same platform had aided Buhari’s election in 2015. Meanwhile, in the midst of the raging debate over fake news and misinformation through social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and others, different stakeholders spoken to yesterday gave different perspectives on the latest move by the government to regulate the cyber space. “What goes on social media is so ridiculous and we will contain it,” information minister Lai said.

He said since the government launched its reform of the broadcast industry, many Nigerians have reached out to it demanding that it also looked into sanitising the social media space. “I can assure you that we are also working on how to inject sanity into the social media space which, today is totally out of control,” he stated.

The minister emphasised that contrary to insinuations, the government had no intention of muzzling the media or stifling free speech, saying the campaign was against fake news and hate speech. He said only those engaged in disseminating fake news or hate speech needed to be worried because they would not be spared. “We cannot allow fake news and hate speech to become free speech because these Siamese twins of evil are capable of inflicting untold damage on our democracy and are threatening our national unity.

They represent a clear and imminent danger to our survival as a nation,” Lai said. He assured that the planned social media regulation would be in line with international best practices as obtainable in Singapore, the United Kingdom and other countries. “No responsible government will sit by and allow fake news and hate speech to dominate its media space because of the capacity of this menace to exploit our national fault lines to set us against each other and trigger a national conflagration. That is why we will continue to evolve ways to tackle fake news and hate speech until we banish both,” he stated.

Daily Trust

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