President Museveni has come out to announce how stringent measures need to be set up to regulate social media in Uganda.
He attributed this to the fake news that always circulate from these platforms and enter into the rest of the citizens hence destabilizing them.
Mr Museveni also talked about how some of the platforms had announced his death a few days ago which sent the entire nation into mixed reactions.
The news said that the President had developed breathing complications supposedly from COVID 19 and had been airlifted to Germany.
Some of the news further added that he had died. He however the next day made a public appearance at Speke resort Munyonyo for the world health summit in perfect health putting the rumors to bed.
Shortly after that, his son and commander of the land forces Lt Gen Muhoozi Kainerugaba was also subjected to the same propaganda.
News suggested that he had fallen sick and was in critical condition in Kenya before he was announced dead.
Muhoozi however also came out to rubbish these claims with a public appearance.
These are not the first and last scenarios that have involved grave fake news scandals.
The President feels that these platforms have to be regulated before they wreck havoc on the general population.
“We need to crack down on the people that are misemploying social media, including the Ugandans abroad. Many are now using it to spread baseless and tasteless news with total abandon. The other time news was circulating of how I was dead. I call upon security to look into this. It must be stopped, get these people.” The president said.
One can easily say that internet and other social media sites are already under a lockdown in Uganda due to the high rates of data fees while Facebook has been blocked since January.
A number of African countries have gone ahead to tighten measures on different social media platforms especially when they don’t coincide with the government’s wishes.
A few months ago Nigeria banned Twitter after the platform deleted President Buhari’s social media post.
However, opposition party FDC was quick to respond to these claims by the President.
They questioned why he didn’t say the same when his social media influencers were spreading fake news in the elections period.
“When FB & Twitter removed pro-NRM regime social media accounts that were spreading fake news during elections, Mr.
@KagutaMuseveni
who was the beneficiary of all this cut off social media. Today he’s crying foul, like Baganda say: Sse lukama mayute, bwo kwata kulilye nga awoloma.” FDC posted on their Twitter page.