By Prince Osuagwu

THE Nigerian communications Commission, Ncc, last week, assembled a group of technocrats and professionals from the media, legal, public relations disciplines to X-ray and highlight very important aspects of the newly promulgated Cybercrime Act, in order to guide the teeming population of youths and other citizens who literarily live on the net, on how to live a purposeful life online.

SocialMedia

The commission made a perfect hit of that attempt, riding on the back of fast growing gathering of the net citizens in Lagos, tagged Social Media Week, which ended last week.

The group of technocrats, including Messrs. Nnamdi Nwokike, Director, Corporate Planning and Strategy, NCC; Mr Taiwo Obe, Founder and Director, Journalism Clinic; Mr Mideno Bayagbon, Editor, Vanguard Newspapers; Basorun Adetunji, New Media and Information Security, NCC; Folorunso Mesele, Information Technology, NCC; and Mrs. Afure Iloka, Legal and Regulatory, NCC, raised some fears that the principle of press freedom and free speech were almost being abused in the cyberspace where they are sometimes being extremely applied to inflict injury to others.

However, the discussants challenged the netizens to acquaint themselves with the contents of the Act in order to be properly guided in their cyber operations.   The event began with a presentation from the Executive Vice Chairman of the Commission, Prof .Umar Danbatta, bordering on “what has the new media got to do with the Cybercrime Act”.

Freedom of expression

The EVC, represented by Director Public Affairs, Mr Tony Ojobo, observed that “the Cybercrime Act has become law since May last year; it was therefore imperative for New Media professionals to familiarise themselves with the contents of the law as it affects their practice.

Pointing to various sections of the Act, he explained that the Act does not encumber freedom of expression as erroneously believed but instead it seeks to protect those whose freedom may be damaged by the freedom freely expressed by others.

For instance, Section 24 of the Act, Danbatta pointed out, deals with Cyber stalking and prescribes punishment for “Any person who knowingly or intentionally sends a message or other matter by means of computer system or network “ which, among others, “he knows to be false, for the purpose of causing annoyance, inconvenience danger, obstruction, insult, injury, criminal intimidation , enmity, hatred, ill will or needless anxiety to another or cause such message to be sent: Commits an offence under this Act and shall be liable on conviction to a fine of not more than N7, 000, 000. 00 or  imprisonment for a term of not more than 3 years or to both such fine and imprisonment.”

Discussing Danbatta’s   presentation, panel agreed on the following: That although there is press freedom, such freedom must be exercised with responsibility; that the things new media practitioners should understand that in carrying out their profession   others can very badly get hurt and distressed in life, hence the need to apply caution; that media practitioners should desist from racist and xenophobic practices which include tribal and religious profiling; that there is the need to be informed that computer has gone beyond that mainframe in the office, the desktop or the laptop which can send messages, to include the small handheld devices that are quite pervasive nowadays; that the understanding of the fact that the Act deals copiously with child pornography and quite explicit on the fact that you do not need to be the originator of content before committing an infraction is paramount; that there is the need to study the Act to know what constitutes financial crimes in electronic transactions.

The high point of this conclusion was when one blogger who revealed he was one of the first victims of the Act indicted even lawyers of ignorance to the Act.

The blogger who said he spent some weeks in Ikoyi prisons while waiting to perfect his bail, threw the gathering into uncontrollable laughter when he revealed that his lawyers were still arguing over the existence of the Act   even as he was being whisked away to detention.

Although the NCC could enjoy some satisfaction and a sense of fulfilment from the confessions of some of the key participants that they had never heard or seen the Act before the NCC Session at the Social Media Week, there were quite a few people like Omoyole Sowore of Sahara Reporters and Gbenga Sesan of Paradigm Initiative Nigeria   who were unhappy with the content as it could affect new media practice, while some saw it as the handwork of some politicians who do not want their corrupt lifestyle to be reported.