President John Dramani Mahama
Ghana Jollof, Afia Schwarzenegger, Nana Ba the Traveller, and Fante Comedy, among others known for passing unpalatable comments on social media, particularly TikTok, have been urged to tread cautiously with their commentaries on national issues as any utterances made to incite violence would be met with arrests.
President John Dramani Mahama, during his media encounter with the press on Wednesday, assured that these so-called TikTokers and influencers are causing chaos in the country, and need to be stopped before things escalate.
The President, who referred to the TikTokers as “criminals”, said, “Now the point is, who holds those people responsible of what they are saying. If you go to some of the WhatsApp platforms, or you go to some of the commentaries on the TikToks and others, we have what we call hate speech, incitement to violence, those are criminal despite the fact that we have removed the criminal libel laws.”
President Mahama stated that with the advent of new technologies, the country is moving from not having just the traditional media but the new media like TikTok, Facebook, and X.
“And so the traditional sense of journalists like you, most of you trained and working in media houses that have a corporate identity and can be held responsible for the information that you put out is beginning to change,” he added.
According to President Mahama, there are some laws that make such people accountable, saying, “because if we don’t regulate that sector, it can lead this nation to war. There are some of the incendiary statements that have been made in the Bawku situation that are fueling some of what is happening there, making people hate each other and see each other as enemies.”
“It’s been the same in the Gonja Brefo conflict, some people fuming and inciting violence against each other,” he added.
The President indicated that this social media chaos falls in the ambit of National Signals Bureau, assuring that the authority now has a technology to trace culprits.
“So I’m sending a signal to Ghanaians that we can find you, you those doing those hate speech and things. We’ll use your IP number, we’ll trace you, and when we trace you, we’ll deal with you under the Criminal Code for inciting violence and disturbance of the peace,” he assured.
President Mahama further mentioned the need to start making regulation for the new media, because it is unregulated.
He also recounted a disturbing commentary which went viral on TikTok and other social media platforms related to the Ghana Armed Forces helicopter crash near Obuasi in the Ashanti Region.
“So anybody just takes a phone and says, Oh, this plane crash, I wish that so and so had been the one in the helicopter and had died, and dwarfs have eaten him in the forest. I mean, why would you say something like that?” he quizzed.
He reiterated that his government will ensure the new media space is regulated, assuring that, “the National Signals Bureau has been given the full authority to track down people who do that kind of thing and bring them to be sanctioned under the Criminal Code.”
By Prince Fiifi Yorke