The Federal Government yesterday said it will regulate big technology micro blogging sites and platforms to generate taxes and to protect the country’s sovereignty and integrity.
The government said the move became necessary due to the far-reaching implications of leaving the platforms open at the detriment of the country’s socio-economic development and the increasing danger of platforms being hijacked to harm Nigeria’s democracy.
The government said it planned to have a Code of Conduct for all social media platforms to understand the status of online and offline activities that could amount to infractions and breaches of the rules of engagement punishable under the country’s subsidiary laws.
The Director General of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Malam Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi, announced the government’s plan at a media briefing yesterday in Abuja to mark the 2022 Data Privacy Week.
He said all infractions – online and offline -would no longer go unpunished with the regulations in place.
The action is coming barely two weeks after the government resolved almost a year dispute with Twitter, with a declaration that the micro blogging company had met the conditions to operate in the country.
Abdullahi, who was the Chairman of the Technical Committee on Federal Government/Twitter Negotiations, said the government was “socialising” on a Bill that would be presented to the National Assembly to take care of all aspects of the social media regulations.
The NITDA boss said the agency, in collaboration with other government agencies and the civil society organisations (CSOs), was also embarking on massive awareness campaign to secure the buy-in of Nigerians on the imperative of having well regulated platforms.
He announced that NITDA, with the support of President Muhammadu Buhari and the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Prof. Isa Pantami, had invested heavily in data protection regulations by training Nigerians and expanding the frontiers of data privacy.
“NITDA is collaborating with relevant agencies of government in strengthening compliance. Data privacy issues can make or mar democracies or literally undermine national security with far-reaching dire consequences to a country and its people,” Abdullahi said.
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