The activities of
Nigerians on the social media are now being monitored for hate speech,
anti-government and anti-security information by the military.
Director of Defence Information, Major-General John
Enenche, told Channels Television that the move became necessary in the light
of troubling activities and misinformation capable of jeopardizing the unity of
the country.
His comments come less than 48 hours after
President Muhammadu Buhari said in his national broadcast that some of the
discussion on social media in his absence crossed the line and left him
distressed.
For Major General Enenche, the social media has
always been a challenge all over the world and for the military, it is not
different.
“It is a double-edged sword and we are also having
a bit of it,” he said when he appeared on Channels Television’s News At 10,
hours after President Buhari met with service chiefs and ordered them to
strengthen their operations.
“Imagine when the President came back and addressed
the nation, not up to 30 minutes later, a fake speech of the Commander-In-Chief
was being circulated in order to do what? To derail the people. If you are not
very sharp and if you didn’t listen to the speech or you don’t have a copy of
it like I had it almost immediately, you wouldn’t know. So, looking at it from
that perspective, it is a challenge everywhere.”
Having observed the possibility that the social
media can be misused the military has taken steps to address that. One of such
steps is the establishment of strategic media centres.
“What are we doing? In the military, we are now
taking on it more seriously than ever. We have our strategic media centres that
monitor the social media to be able to sieve out and react to all the ones that
will be anti-government, be anti-military, (and) be anti-security,” the
military chief continued.
“We tackle them appropriately with appropriate responses.
Ahead of that, we are also proactive. We have measures in place, scientific
measures to be able to sieve this information and also to get the public and
let them know that some of this information they are getting is not genuine are
not true and their objective is an anti-corporate existence of this country.”
News
Source: - Vanguard | August 24, 2017.
Photo Source: - Nigeria Bulletin | August 23, 2017.
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