The Federal Government says, apart from enacting new laws on social media regulation, there are many options open to it.
The Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed stated this in Abuja at a meeting with the Guild of Corporate Online Publishers, GOCOP. He said the government could have control on technology, working with the big techies like Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, Instagram to check the spread of fake news and hate speech.
The Minister noted that it is premature for anyone to say that there are enough laws already to deal with social media deviants. He said the process for the social media regulation would not be a unilateral process because government would carry relevant stakeholders along.
Mohammed observed that from October 29, when he announced government plan to sanitise the social media, there had been intense debate on the issue. But he added noted that contrary to opinions from certain quarters, the planned regulation was not aimed at stopping free speech and silencing the media.
He said Nigeria was not alone, countries including Germany, UK, Singapore, China, South Korea, Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya, Zambia were doing something about the social media.
