Image Caption: Papua New Guinea’s Prime Minister, Peter O’Neill, and Canada’s Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, at the APEC Summit in Lima.
The two Prime Ministers were among other World Leaders who expressed concern at the way in which false news has taken over true news on Facebook.
PM O’Neill called on Facebook CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, who was at the meeting, to take stronger action to prevent false news and hate speech on the platform that he created and manages.
This comes after the Papua New Guinean parliament passed unanimously a cybercrime bill in August of this year. If once fully implemented, will come with prison terms and a scale of heavy fines. Any online material that is deemed to violate copyright, decency, and defamation laws will have perpetrators slapped with as much as K1 million.
But many members of the general public view the steps taken as unconstitutional; depriving rights to freedom of speech and expression
The onus is now on the respective enforcing authorities to educate the public on what maybe an act of liberty or libel to the state, groups and other individuals.
