By Iddi Yire, GNA
Accra, Sept 26, GNA – President John Dramani Mahama has renewed his calls for a national dialogue to rethink regulation for TikTok and other new media platforms as part of efforts to curb misinformation and hate speech while safeguarding free expression.
The President made the call during a Townhall Meeting in New York with Ghanaians in the Diaspora on the theme “The Reset Agenda: The Role of the Ghanaian Diaspora”.
He urged the Ghana Journalists Association (GJA) and the Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) to convene a national stakeholder forum engagement on digital content and online hate speech.
“And let’s all collectively take a decision on what we want to do with the new media. Should the police get involved or they shouldn’t get involved? How do we regulate it? You come out and tell us,” he stated.
The President said it was not only Ghana where people were wondering what to do to regulate TikTok, because in all countries all over the world, they were wondering what to do to make sure that they have information integrity even with TikTok.
“Anybody who has a phone just puts it in front of him and just says whatever he likes. And once they put it out, it has an algorithm that shares it,” he said.
President Mahama said if one listens to something similar on TikTok, it brings out another one that was similar.
“So, if you don’t want to watch it, sometimes you want to open something else and then it would cut in.
“And as usual, Ghanaians, we also have taken it to a new level. Insults, I don’t mind if people show their face and own what they are saying. But there are some who are hiding and they just put something there and behind it, they say the most vile things,” President Mahama said.
“As a leader, I don’t mind being insulted. I’ve been insulted; I was vilified. I voted out of office. So, me, this skin is a crocodile skin. So, if you insult me, I don’t mind. If you insult me, I don’t mind.”
President Mahama said, he was doing what he could for Ghana and Africa.
“I will do what is right. Really, I don’t mind the insults. But all of us have to decide. What do we want to do with TikTok? I can tell the IGP; we can go to Cabinet and say, lay off. Let anybody insult anybody. Let’s leave it free for all. Don’t arrest anybody for anything they say. We can do that. But it’s not what we want?” he asked.
Touching on the arrest by the Police, President Mahama noted that sometimes the Police go to the extreme.
“You never know, once you start arresting, you don’t know where to stop. And so, let’s all decide what we want to do. So that we either find a way of regulating it or we say we are in a country of free expression, so anybody can see whatever you want. But it’s sometimes in Ghana, we try to make it look like we invented democracy and we are freer than even those who brought democracy.”
Using the United States as an example, President Mahama said: “I mean, if you take a TikTok and threaten Trump and say that you are coming after him and you are planning to come to the White House and assassinate, you think you will not be swept off your feet”.
“Yeah, but in Ghana, you can say that when you arrest somebody, they say, oh, no, no, no, you are trampling our free expression. A lot of these arrests, I don’t even know about them.”
President Mahama said he also hears in the media that somebody had been tracked and arrested.
He said the reasons the Police give for the arrest of a person worries him.
“And sometimes it worries me, because sometimes the reason for which the person will be arrested, really, I mean, they say he has insulted me. And you look at the insult, it doesn’t touch my coat for the person to be arrested.” President Mahama stated.
GNA
Edited by Benjamin Mensah