Nigerians have expressed their outrage by a proposed bill by the Nigerian senate to regulate the use of social media by its citizens.

The bill, ‘Protection from Internet Falsehood and Manipulations Bill, 2019’ was introduced on Tuesday, November 5 and according to the sponsor of the legislation, it will curb fake news on the internet.



As mixed reactions trail its re-introdution, here are three things you should know about the controversial bill.

Penalties
Senator Mohammed Sani Musa who proposed the bill tells Premium Times,

“If anyone is caught with this kind of situation, you cough out between N150,000 to a maximum imprisonment of three years or both. And if it is a corporate organisation that refused to block that false information despite the fact that they have been alerted by authorities not to disseminate that information for public interest and they still go ahead to do it, refusing to do that blockage will be penalised between N5 million to N10 million for those organisations.

“For example, MTN, Glo, 9 mobile etc. which we use their platform in transmitting these information, if nothing is done, we fine them and you will see that it will be deterrence to others,” the lawmaker said.

Needed Remedy or Abuse of Rights

Civil society groups have lamented that should the proposed bill be passed into law, it will set back all the progress Nigeria has made in its fight for the protection of human rights, especially the freedom of expression. When the 2015 bill was proposed, Nigerians used the #NoToSocialMediaBill to oppose the proposed law.

While passing a bill to fight misinformation is not the problem, there is the fear that the Nigerian government could misuse the law.

Read on https://newsng.com.ng/3-things-to-know-about-the-proposed-social-media-regulation-bill/

Those who voted the undemocratic cow should only enjoy the law....