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Muthambi looks to ‘draconian’ Russia for social media policy

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 Faith Muthambi.
Faith Muthambi.
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A day after State Security Minister David Mahlobo said he wanted to regulate social media, communications minister Faith Muthambi met the Russian deputy minister of telecoms and mass media to discuss “best practices” for the media.

Muthambi hosted Alexey Volin, Russian deputy minister of telecoms and mass communication, in Pretoria on Monday morning.

“We need to tell the story of the relations between South Africa and Russia using the different media platforms available at our disposal. We need to tell the stories that will also reach the ordinary men and women in our respective countries, so that they should understand the significance of our bilateral and economic relations,” Muthambi said, according to a copy of her speech provided by the department of communications’ website.

She said the platform between the two countries’ departments of communications should be used to share “best practices in the area of communications and media”.

In Russia, journalists who don’t toe the Putin-line are prosecuted.

The international press freedom watchdog, Reporters without Borders, describes the situation of press freedom in Russia as follows: “What with draconian laws and website blocking, the pressure on independent media has grown steadily since Vladimir Putin’s return to the Kremlin in 2012. Leading independent news outlets have either been brought under control or throttled out of existence. While TV channels continue to inundate viewers with propaganda, the climate has become very oppressive for those who question the new patriotic and neo-conservative discourse or just try to maintain quality journalism. The leading human rights non-governmental organisations have been declared “foreign agents”.

On Sunday Mahlobo said at a press conference that the media and judiciary were used by foreign agents who wanted to undermine the government’s decisions. He also said social media should be regulated.

He described some information shared on social media platforms as harmful and said it is used irresponsibly, disseminating lies and altered photos.

He also said unconstitutional regime change was being attempted in South Africa, as had happened in North Africa and the Middle East.

Murray Hunter of the local civic rights’ watchdog Right2Know was concerned about Mahlobo’s State Security Agency entering the space of regulating social media.

“There is a reasonable discussion to be had about how we address false information online,” he said but added that it was not within the State Security Agency’s mandate.

He said citizens should learn how to separate the wheat from the chaff.

“Citizens should be empowered, not the state.”

Asked if it would be practical to regulate South Africa’s social media, he said there were two models that could be used. The one is a “vast, national completely pervasive surveillance system”, as the one used in China.

The other is to criminalise the dissemination of certain information, and then to prosecute those distributing it.

He said the latter would be similar to the dusting off of the apartheid era Riotous Assemblies Act, to be used against troublesome voices of dissent.


Jan Gerber
Parliamentary journalist
City Press
p:+27 11 713 9001
w:www.citypress.co.za  e: jan.gerber@24.com
      
 
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