By Muhammed Akindele
A country or a state where fake news is the order of the day is likely prone to experience chaos or misplacement of law and order. For instance, the Rwanda went through hell during the Rwanda 1994 genocide which claimed the life of many people, as a result of fake news and propaganda that were circulated against the hutsi tribe in Rwanda by the pro-hutu, who were in power then.
Fake news can manipulate and create fear in people’s minds. For example, in August, 2022 Kaduna witnessed a trail of panic, when a fake news circulated around the state about bandits ravaging the state. The Kaduna state government urged the citizens to beware of such news noting as a fact that fake news meant to spread panic.
In a bid to curb spreading of fake news, some countries have taken necessary measures to regulate social media. One of these countries is Singapore. Singapore has since last year, 2022, passed a legislation to regulate social media outlets such as Facebook, TikTok, YouTube in order to remove what they termed as “egregious content”, such as those promoting self harm, sexual exploitation, terrorism and hate.
To curb the spread of counterfeit News in Nigeria, the Anti-social Media Bill was introduced in 2019, which aimed at preventing the spread of malicious statements and fake news. The original name of the bill was Protection from Internet Falsehood and Manipulations Bill 2019. After the content of the bill was made public, there was public outcry from masses of the deprivation from freedom of speech. Besides, they also claimed that the bill was a plagiarized version of the similar law in Singapore, which is at the bottom of global ranking of freedom of speech.
However, since the decision of the government to regulate social space doesn’t always go well with the public, it would be acceptable if the government creates a balance between regulating social media and freedom of expression of the masses. Moreso, some professional media outlets, regardless of their reputation or platform, should be allowed to face consequences for peddling fake news, just like the National Broadcasting Commission, NBC, once sanctioned Arise TV over fake reports of a particular presidential candidate.
Finally, another way the government can regulate the social Media space without restricting the freedom of speech of the citizens is to make some regulations that require social media platforms to verify the identity of members, and also to fact-check any content before posting. Educating the public about media literacy is also very important on the part of the government, so that people would be wary of any information they consume on social media.