Nigerians divided over move to regulate social media

The proposed plan of the Federal Government to regulate social media has continued to generate reactions from Nigerians.

Director-General of the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC), Balarabe Ilelah, had said the social media regulation bill has been sent to the National Assembly.

According to the NBC, the bill is seeking to repeal and reenact the NBC Act, CAP L11 laws of the Federation of Nigeria 2004.

Ilelah made this known when he hosted the Minister of Information and National Orientation, Mohammed Idris, at the commission’s headquarters, describing the ills of social media as a “monster”.

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The NBC boss lamented that the current law does not give NBC the right to control social media.

But the announcement by Ilelah as shown by Nigerians while speaking on Daily Trust X spaces on Thursday evening revealed that they are divided over the issue.

While some Nigerians favoured the regulation Bill, others outrightly disagreed with it.

Some who backed the proposed regulation pointed out that a lot of fake new is being circulated on social media

Below are some of their comments:

@KayBee said: “On social media platforms, Nigerians have been duped. So, the Bill is actually trying to protect people. We must get that clear because misinformation is not the only thing happening on social media platforms. There are others like cyber stalking and cyber bullying. So, therefore the Bill is necessary.”

@Peter356 opined that: “This is the first time that they are seeing a strong opposition and that’s why they want to regulate social media. The government is behind fake news as well. During the 2015 election, we all saw what they did to Jonathan. Who regulated social media then? Now, they feel it’s not in their favour and they want to regulate our freedom and in disguise say they want to regulate social media”

Folashade Akinlade said: “Nigeria is in a state whereby we cannot really say we are all right with anything. Of course nobody has any hotline to the government to say ‘please, gas is increasing, help us look into it’. The worst people do is right on television or radio on social media. Now you want to stop people from speaking up when things are going bad. It’s not fair.”

@OtunbaGCFRN: “When government says they want to sanitize the public, we should be happy, because the social media today is a mess. Check Facebook, X is even better. I support the motion that social media must be regulated. Truly politicians can be funny, but at the same time, social media be regulated.”

Yusuf Tijjani Ali said: “I am in total support of the regulatory Bill. Government is not banning social media completely but only trying to checkmate the content people post. I think it’s a good one.”