News

Do You Support FG’s Plans To Regulate Social Media?

Published

4 years ago

November 5, 2020

BY ROTIMI AKINDELE & MONSURU ADEGBENRO ADENIYI

Since the Federal Government declared its intention to start regulating the social media following the #EndSARS riots in the country, a lot of reactions have been coming from nigeirans.

Incidentally, much of the responses coming from the masses are in opposition of the move, despite the defenses being put up by the government.

The Eagle duo of went to town to sample Nigerians and below are some responses. Happy reading and do not fail to let us know what you feel.

You and I know that social media is one of the platforms that is extremely useful not just to the youths in the society but everybody. if government is planning to regulate social media platform, I don’t think it’s a good idea because even the governments are making use of social media to pass information across to the citizens.

A lot of people have gained access to social media and then they realised that social media could be a means of achieving greater things. How do I mean, now we’ve learnt so much on social media platforms and we.have met with a lot of people also through social media platforms. Through it, we have been able to know what and what is going on not just in our country but also in various aspects of the world. So, it is not necessary to regulate social media platforms as social media has been in existence let’s deal with it, we are good to go on it.

NAOMI JAMES, PRESENTER

Why is it that after the #EndSARS protests, the governments are saying they want to regulate social media? It makes no sense unless they are trying to hide something they aren’t meant to.

I don’t feel social media should be regulated as right from the beginning it wasn’t regulated. People can’t just wake up one morning and just form lies without them having the experience or hearing it. Either they are suspecting that it’s going to happen or it has happened before. To me I don’t feel social media should be regulated as right from the beginning it wasn’t regulated.

TOBI OYEWUNMI, STUDENT

My opinion is for God to just help us in Nigeria and that’s all as it’s only him who can help us in this situation.

OLA, TRANSPORTER

On my own opinion, social media should not be regulated. It it is regulated, it means the government is one way or the other trying to curtail or trying to infringe on the right of the citizen. If you want to put it in the other way round, they (those in government) came in through the influence of social media whereby they used the social media to unleash out a lot of propaganda that were not even true..

After coming into power, they are trying one way or the other to make sure that they suppress the people. Through the power of social media one is able to know what is going out within and outside the country, so trying to regulate it is uncalled for and shouldn’t happen.

Citizens have to express themselves by standing up against it as I personally am against it. A democratic elected government should operate according to the constitution and rule of law and shouldn’t be against it.

GODWIN, TRANSPORTER

I think regulation of social media is a scam from the government; they want to use it against the youth so that they won’t be able to speak on social media but what about the parties like the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), the All Progressive Congress (APC) and the remaining other parties that also criticize the government?

The idea is to stop all these people from commenting against the government.

What kind of governance are we practicing? Should we call it authoritarian or dictatorship, are we practicing it. I won’t allow such nonsense and if we are asked to vote about, I will definitely vote against it. People representing us should vote against it, if the northerners want to practice their religion and they think social media is against it then they should stop it in the north but we from this part of Nigeria (South West) don’t consider it necessary.

HENRY, BUSINESSMAN

To regulate social media is not a bad thing if it is to curb sending of fake news or to regulate what is happening on the social media

The problem however is that our definition of what is fake news in Nigeria is very vague.

Government can hide under anything and say it is fake news. Most of the things that happen in Nigeria, we don’t get to know about it until they are aired by media houses abroad and that is rubbish. Even when media houses in Nigeria know about it, they can’t publish it because government has not certified it. I am surprised that government wants to sanction some media houses in Nigeria like African Independent Television (AIT), Channels TV, Arise TV for their roles in reporting the #ENDSARS protest and Lekki Massacre.

Is it wrong to report what is happening? I don’t think it’s wrong. That will tell you that our government is mischievous, they are out to silence everybody and only let the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA) talk as it will not say anything against the government. The government has not positioned itself as being a representative of the people; I am sorry to say this but that is the reality on ground.

News is all about telling people what is going on and not about saying what you want people to hear. Why does government manage lies, it is uncalled for.

AGBOOLA, PHARMACIST

Personally I don’t think it’s a good idea what the government is about to do because when you talk about social media, it is not all about the news as there are also businesses on social media and much of the information we get from our friends and our colleagues all over the world is from social media. I don’t think social media carries most of the fake news.

What the government is trying to do, is maybe silence the youths from expressing themselves as they are some youths who know the truth about happenings but don’t have a voice to be heard and the only way to do so is through the use of social media.

So I don’t think the regulation of social media is a good idea. Tthe government just wants to bring another strategy to silence the youths spreading the news about happenings.

SUNDAY, DRIVER