President John Mahama has responded to criticisms of his government in relation to arrests of persons who use their social media platforms to insult people in authority.
He gave the response on the sidelines of the 81st United Nations General Assembly on September 25 in New York.
READ PRESIDENT JOHN MAHAMA’S COMMENT IN FULL:
“…But there’s a new media called TikTok and it’s not only Ghana where people are wondering what to do to regulate TikTok, because in all countries all over the world they are wondering what to do to make sure that we 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 and so if you listen to something similar, it will bring you another one that’s similar, it will bring you another one that’s similar. So, if you don’t want to watch it, sometimes you want to open something else and then it comes.
And as usual, Ghanaians, we also have taken it to a new level. Insults and some… 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 vilest things.
As a leader, I don’t mind being insulted. I’ve been insulted, I was vilified, I was voted out of office. So for me, this skin is a crocodile skin. So, if you insult me, I don’t mind. You insult me, I don’t mind and indeed I’m doing what I can for my country and my continent. I’m doing what I can for Ghana and Africa and 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 is that what we want?
And so I said what we should do is, Ghana Journalists Association, you saw the letter from my executive secretary, Media Foundation for West Africa, bring all the stakeholders together and hold a workshop or a forum 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 because really for me, sometimes I don’t, sometimes the police can go to the extreme and 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’re a country of free expression so anybody can say whatever he wants, but indeed sometimes in Ghana we try to make it look like we invented democracy and we are freer than even those who brought democracy.
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 him, you think you will not be swept off your feet? Yeah, but in Ghana you can say it and when you arrest somebody, they say, oh no, no, no, you are trampling on free expression.
A lot of these arrests, I don’t even know about them. I also hear them on the media. Somebody has been tracked and arrested and all that and sometimes it worries me because sometimes the reason for which the person has been arrested, really, I mean they say he’s insulted me and you look at the insult and it can’t be quoted for the person to be arrested.”
