By Madi Jobarteh HumanRights Activists wrote on fbook :
This obnoxious online media content regulation is particularly targeted at people like who have influence, ideas and reach to determine the development of this contribute. No more. No less.
A government official like the Minister Ismaila Ceesay can have the right to go to any radio and television station, create all social media platforms, and organize a press conference everyday to spread falsehoods and disinformation yet he needs no permission, no regulation, no registration and no controls because he is a MINISTER.
But you or any other citizen cannot express his genuine, honest and useful ideas unless the Minister and PURA tells you it is okay. They give themselves the power to register you to open a Facebook or TikTok account and determine what you say, whether it is right or wrong and if they don’t like it, they deny you to register or close you down! What nonsense!
Imagine how many of our young ladies making income from running their businesses on TikTok, WhatsApp status and on Facebook. Why should Aminata or Josephine register with PURA because she has 10,000 clients on TikTok? Why?
Yet, the Minister and PURA sit there and cannot make YouTube or Facebook or social media companies monetize their platforms from this country. Facebook and YouTube and social media platforms make millions out of Gambians everyday yet Gambians can’t earn a butut from them. Why is the Minister and PURA not bringing that opportunity to Gambians but instead want to control how a Gambian citizen can use these platforms and what you can say their.
Yaya Jammeh tried this nonsense in 2002 but focused only on the media. He eventually failed woefully because journalists and citizens stood up against it. Today, the Barrow regime wants to do the same but expand it to control and suppress citizens beyond the media and they must be resisted strongly.
Their accreditation policy and online media regulation are dictatorial, unconstitutional, nonsensical and disingenuous!