The National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) has said that it is in discussions with prominent social media platforms such as Google and TikTok to address the misconduct of their users.
Director of Broadcast Monitoring at NBC, Francisca Aiyetan, discussed the Commissions intention to regulate social media in a published interview on Friday.
She warned that without regulation, social media might mislead young people, saying: Every country is making efforts to regulate social media, and Nigeria also is making efforts because we know that there are a lot of things to harness from it. But if not regulated, it can also be a platform that will misguide our young people.
The level we are now is discussing with stakeholders to agree that, yes, we need to regulate social media and at that level; there should be legislation; there should be strengthening of the law to factor-in all the things that are new on the broadcasting and content-sharing space.
And then, when you have the power and the enablement by law to do such things, then we can now look at: do we have the way to do it technology-wise? Nevertheless, presently what we do is that we engage the platform owners; as a regulator, we engage Google, YouTube, and TikTok; so we know the faces behind these platforms.
Earlier, it was reported that NBC Director-General, Balarabe Ilelah, said he has sent a Bill for the regulation of social media to the National Assembly. The regulator said it is seeking to repeal and re-enact the NBC Act, CAP L11 laws of the Federation of Nigeria 2004.
Ilelah, who described the ills of social media as a monster, said the current law does not give NBC the right to regulate social media.
