Lai Mohammed, minister of information and culture, says fake
news influenced the outcome of the United States presidential election,
especially for Hillary Clinton.
In 2016, Donald Trump defeated Clinton, a former secretary
of state, to emerge as the 45th president of the US.
Speaking on Tuesday when he appeared before the House of
Representatives committees on communication, justice, information and culture,
and national security and intelligence, Mohammed said most countries are
formulating policies to regulate the operations of social media.
He insisted that social media platforms are profit-making ventures that must be duly registered.
“I know that both the
National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) and Nigerian Communications Commission
(NCC) monitor, on a daily basis, not just these platforms but the entire
broadcasting environment. But the thing about social media is that it caught
the entire world by storm,” he said.
“As we speak today, UK, EU are all struggling to come by
with laws to regulate social media; Australia, Singapore, same.
“The thing about social media is that when they came, they
were neither communication nor information. They were operating under the
radar.
“It is only recently
that governments all over the world started realising that ‘wait a minute,
these people are doing business. They are not licenced neither here nor
anywhere in the world?’ And they said ‘no, this must stop. And you are causing
a lot of trouble.’
“It was said that Hillary Clinton lost the last election
because of social media. It was fake news. The first fake news was that she was
suffering from very bad health. The second was that she had ties with the
terrorists, I think the third fake news was that the Pope did not support her
or that the Pope supported Trump. These were all fake news.
“So the issue of fake news is not today and the struggle to
regulate social media is not today.”
Mohammed said the NBC and NCC will continue to monitor the
operations of social media platforms in the country, adding that they must all
register to do business in Nigeria.
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