Fake News: We Need To Regulate Digital Media – Adesina
POLITICS DIGEST – The Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina, has reiterated the need to regulate the activities of online media in the country to curb the incessant publication of fake news items which come with devastating consequences.
Adesina said as much as the digital media has come to stay with all the positive things in it, it has to be regulated to curb the inherent evil it contains which is fake news.
The Presidential spokesman was speaking on Friday in Abuja, at the public presentation of a book titled “101 Fake News On EndSars”.
“Every good thing in life is to be considered with the evil embedded within it. Digital media is very good but there is evil embedded in it and that evil was seen during the EndSars. And it has got to stop,” Adesina said.
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The book, written by Dahiru Lawal, a journalist and fact-check expert with PRNigeria, exposed 101 of the most popular news items that dominated the airwaves during the EndSARS rallies which were found to be false.
Commending the author for putting together such an investigative masterpiece, Adesina condemned the evil of fake news, lamenting that some persons are hell bent on pulling the country down by constantly propagating fake news about himself, his principal, President Muhammadu Buhari, and other state actors.
Adesina narrated his personal experience with fake news peddlers and told the audience that the book couldnt have come at a better time.
The chairman of the occasion, Dr. Umar Jibrilu Gwandu, also commended the author of the book for his diligence and thoroughness.
He called on the authorities to consider granting such a young man scholarship for further studies at home or abroad, to encourage others to also be patriotic.
A cross section of speakers including spokesmen of security agencies and senior journalists called for stiffer penalties for the dissemination of fake news and called on media owners to rally and save the noble profession of journalism from the invasion of quacks.
