In the run-up to the last elections, social media was on overdrive with local politics – productive and otherwise.
While that was expected given the passion for politics in Ghana today, the level of vitriolic or hate speech accompanying it was not; the manner in which social media addicts and IT savvy youth used hate speech to run down targeted politicians was worrying.
The trend has grown over time, its victims cutting across the broad spectrum of society.
To think that many were doing so and still do on behalf of politicians on whose payroll they are, is mindboggling and shows the impetus driving the social ill.
So bad was the language used that for adults who see beyond today, there is the need to adopt a control mechanism to ensure sanity on the social media space.
It is unfortunate that the younger ones in senior high schools are picking up the bad habit, indulging in the negative side of social media use.
Nobody has been spared from the hate speeches of these young persons who hide in the comfort of their rooms to hurl accusations and outright insults against persons the ages of their fathers or grandfathers and grandmothers.
It was regrettable that at the time this went on, those benefitting from the trend kept mute, finding nothing untoward with it. That was not surprising because after all they paid the pipers as it were and, therefore, dictated the bad tunes.
There are moves to regulate the use of social media and, therefore, stem the tide of hate speeches as it prevails today.
This is a dicey issue which should be handled with care.
If the intention is to really instil sanity on social media, we and others would not have problems with the efforts to introduce regulation into social media use.
Truth be however told; the real motive behind the move is to shield those at the helm of government against what they did to their predecessors in the erroneous name of political campaigning.
This is the reason observers are expressing outrage at the regulations about to hit the legislative works.
With the National Democratic Congress (NDC) at the throttles and recognising how they used social media to undertake propaganda against the New Patriotic Party (NPP), then in government, they intend to deny the opposition and others from subjecting them to what they benefitted from earlier.
The legislation as it stands, when allowed to pass, would stifle free speech, and for us an alternative means of dealing with the subject would be preferable so democracy does not suffer unduly.
Anything that has the tendency to thwart free speech and for that matter democracy should be resisted. The NDC in government seeking to first and foremost shield itself against hate speech would give interpretations to the regulations that would be favourable to their political cause.