Don urges FG to regulate, monitor social media space

Dr Uwoma Uche, Head, Department of Mass Communication, Abia Polytechnic, Aba, has called on the Federal Government to set up a regulatory body to monitor and scrutinise the information flow in the social media space.

Uche made the call on Wednesday while delivering a lecture at the 2019 Press Week of the Correspondents Chapel of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), Abia council.

In the lecture entitled, “Challenges of Social Media in Journalism Practice in Nigeria,” Uche said that the abuse of the social media in Nigeria had made it imperative to have a regulatory body to checkmate the excesses of the operators.

He said that such a regulatory agency should be saddled with the responsibility of ensuring that social media operate within the acceptable standard and ethics of the journalism profession.

Uche urged the government to increase surveillance on online practitioners and develop legal, administrative and technological tools to check indiscriminate posting of information that were potentially harmful to nation’s peace and security.

Uche tasked the social media practioners to train and retrain themselves in the basic rudiments of journalism to be able to discharge the task of information dissemination in line with the ethics of journalism.

He said, “News should be developed in line with the ethical standards and censored by media experts before it is published.”

He described social media practitioners as “usurpers and gatecrashers”, whose only qualification, he said, was their ability to own android phones and tablets.

Uche charged media professionals in the country to upgrade their knowledge and become Information Communication Technology complaint to enable them to meet the modern day communication challenges.

He advocated concerted efforts by conventional media professionals, the leadership of NUJ and government to rid the media space of untrained and uncertificated bloggers.

In his remarks, Chief Obinna Ibe, the Chairman of the chapel, said the Press Week as an annual event provided an opportunity for stock-taking by media professionals.

He said that journalists utilise the week to appraise and evaluate their performance, achievements and challenges in the practice of their noble profession.

Ibe said that the grand-finale of the event, billed for Friday, would feature award presentation to three eminent Nigerians for their contributions to human and economic development of Abia and Nigeria.

Other guests at the lecture, including a veteran journalist, Ambrose Nwachukwu, an online publisher,  Chika Nwabueze, as well as Mr Maduka Okoro, the Media Aide to Sen. Orji Kalu, also spoke of the need for stringent measures to put the activities of the social media in check.

They said that the merits of the social media far outweighed their merits and caution government and government officials to be circumspect in their preference for them against the traditional media.

There was also a census among them that social media had done more harm than good to the nation, describing them as the major purveyors of fake news, hate speech, cyber bullying and other activities that posed danger to national unity and development. (NAN)