THE Vice President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo, SAN, on Wednesday warned that fake news as currently being promoted in the country could cause violence because of its destructive power.
He spoke in Abuja at the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) Conference, on Nigeria 2019: Countering Fake News, where, the Nobel Laureate Prof. Wole Soyinka and other panelists unanimously agreed that fake news halfway criminalised as a way of curbing the menace.
Osinbajo said fake news could also cause damage to credibility and integrity of public information.
He stressed that the capacity of fake news to cause great harm was not in doubt as it has the ability to mislead without realising it.
While narrating his personal experience in the hands of fake news peddlers, he stressed that there remains a problem of drawing a line so as not to infringe on the rights of the people.
He said: “I have also been a victim. Fake news may also cause you marital peace. About three weeks ago I got a call from my wife in the office and she said, Yemi what are you doing with strippers.
“There has been this story on a very famous blog that said, ‘Osinbajo caught with strippers.’ And there was also a photograph of me standing in between the perfectly clothed ladies and under the photograph, the same ladies now not wearing much.
“It turned out that I have taken photographs with the ladies at an entertainment event when they were perfectly clothed.
“The capacity of fake news to cause great arm is not in doubt at all. It has been the realisation that it may even mislead. I think it was Winston Churchill that said a lie gets half way around the world before the truth has a chance to get his pants on.
“But why fake news is now news, is obviously because of the greater dimension of the content of harm that it can do and then the scope.
“A lot of these are as a result of the advancement in technology, especially in the past few decades or so. But I think as for the damage done to the credibility and integrity of public information, the capacity of fake news to cause alarm, fear and even violence has been demonstrated again and again.”
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He, however, warned that greater damage will be done if nothing is done about it.
He added, “a perfect video of people speaking or somebody making a speech that he never made at events that never happened. It will become more and more difficult to differentiate between what is truth and what is not.
“I think if we discredit public information, it is a massive danger for society itself aside from the capacity to cause physical harm. Once it destroys the believability of public information, then the means of communicating with each other has been soiled forever.”
While raising the concern of human right in an attempt to address fake news, Osinbajo, however, said it would be impossible to regulate social media without infringing on fundamental rights.
He said: “Today there are three issues we have to look at. The first is to which extent can we hold local media owners to account. A lot of the disinformation obviously are from social media. It is easier to sue the traditional media because they are bound by local laws and it is much easier to hold them to account. But social media is under multi-jurisdictional regulations if there is any threat.”
The Vice-President commended the organisers for coming up with the conference, saying, “this conversation is overdue and I hope that we are able to provide some direction for the way we should handle this problem on fake news.”
Other panelists include Director, BBC World Service Group, Jamie Angus; President, Nigeria Guild of Editors, Funke Egbemode; Founder, Bella Naija, Uchechukwu Pedro.
Prof. Soyinka said that fake news has the capacity to cause the Third World War, adding that it might come from Nigeria, stressing that fake news be treated as a crime.
According to him: “People do not understand what it’s like to have things attributed to you which you know nothing about. Apart from the fact that I have been killed on social media several times.
“This last year I had telephone calls asking me where are you and I said I am in hell. And I said I know why you are calling because you thought I was dead. Imagine waking up one day and finding a statement attributed to you and in a kind of language which you never used.
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“For example during former President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration, there were statements that said that I asked why Jonathan married an illiterate woman. I never made comments like that whatsoever. Those who share fake news are sick in the head.
“And I made a statement that if people are not careful world war three may quickly start by fake news and that fake news probably will be generated by a Nigerian.
“We have a system where fake news can multiple in a second. Many of the fake news carriers use it for business. I have someone whom we have tracked down in Poland, using a fake Facebook page of my name and my picture.
“And I gave him a deadline to pull down the page. He’s from the United States of America but lives in Poland. He is a member of an organisation called some AIESEC which actually encourages young business men and women,” he said.
“The first thing is to accept the fact that fake news is real and people should stop rushing to the fake sites. Individuals who have no voice before have been empowered suddenly.
“Every individual is now a journalist, editor promoter and most of all a publisher. There is competition to be the first to comment. So, the ‘419’ individuals sleep in cafes doing all sorts of things. Fake news should be treated as a crime,” he said.
The representative of the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Festus Okoye, a National Commissioner, said fake news constitutes a danger to the forthcoming general elections.
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