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Effectively immediately, the Sierra Leone Police (SLP) will begin to take tough action against those spreading fake news about the country on social media platforms under the Cybercrime law.
The clamp down follows citizens’ failure to henceforth desist from disseminating fake news and horrendous photos of fictitious kidnap victims on social platforms with the primary motive to portray the country in a bad light, despite several warnings.
A senior police official intimated The Satellite Newspaper that no order from the Inspector General of Police, they will now respond swiftly to the spread of fake news on social media platforms and take legal action accordingly under the Cybercrime law.
He strongly warned that they will begin to arrest and prosecute those who continue to disseminate fake news and post horrendous photos on social media platforms. Though, it is unclear which particular fake news and awful photos and scenes of dreadful and distasteful incidence of other countries now attributed to Sierra Leone especially political reasons are outrageous and alarming.
Citizens should spread good news about the country, the senior police said, not bad ones intended to depict the country deplorable.
Thus, he said, tough action needs to be taken to curb this menace especially when it has the propensity to scare away investors and also deprived the country from benefiting from various windows of opportunities in terms of development.
The Satellite Newspaper reports that since President Bio’s SLPP government assumed power from the deposed opposition APC party some three years ago, there has been unimaginable surge of fake news about the country on various social media platforms that usually create panic and national security threat.
