SOCIAL MEDIA: Citizens can insult public officers, criticize govt, but must pay for false stories, Keyamo insists

The Minister of State for Labour, Festus Keyamo (SAN) has again said that nobody should be punished for insulting public officers or criticising government.

He was making clarification on an earlier comment on social media bill.

In an earlier post on his verified Twitter account – @fkeyamo, the minister had wrote, “Those so-called overnight Social Media ‘activists’ who oppose the Social Media Bill should first stop blocking those who irritate them with insults, unblock all those they have blocked and apologise to them. You can’t be intolerant and ask others to be. Practice what you preach.”

But some Nigerians disagreed with Keyamo. They argued that there was no correlation between blocking someone on social media handles and locking someone up in prison over opposing views and insults.

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However in his reply Keyamo said, “If you’re so intolerable of opposing views and insults on social media to the extent of blocking people, if you have the power you will lock them up. That’s the point. Some mischievous ones are trying to teach us that there is no correlation between blocking and locking. There is.

“Mischief makers are twisting the issues . Let me be CLEAR: nobody should be punished for insulting public officers; nobody can be punished for criticizing govt. But if you post FALSE stories that can turn citizens against one another or lead to an uprising, YOU MUST BE PUNISHED”

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