O President of Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe, created a ministry to punish “mice” that use cyberspace to attack their government. The new holder of the portfolio, as head of this new Ministry of Cybersecurity, Threat Detection and Mitigation is the Patrick Chinamasa, who is a former finance minister.
However, Patrick Chinamasa's first job, it seems, is to get rid of or regulate the use of Whatsapp and Facebook in Zimbabwe, raising serious concerns about freedom of expression, access to information and repression in the media message Social.
While Robert Mugabe and the government describe the new ministry as "protective", that is, acting in a defensive role, there are concerns that indicate the opposite, as he has been looking for ways to control the use of social media locally. All of this occurs when Zimbabwe finalizes a bill on computers and cybercrime that has already attracted criticism from human rights and freedom of expression campaign groups.
Second George Charamba (Mugabe's spokesman), the new minister will be able to learn from the experience of other countries, including China and Russia, two countries known for their censorship of local and major social media platforms.
The spokesman described these countries as having “done well to ensure some kind of order and legality in this area (Cyber-space)“Law expert Alex Magaisa said this week that“ cAn autonomous ministry to monitor cyberspace also shows Mugabe's propensity to expand instruments of coercion in opposition to the protection of fundamental freedoms".
Do you agree with this decision of the Zimbabwean president?
aahahahahahhaha… old Mugabe no longer knows what he's doing… anyway
… To regulate, not to “regularize”.
They look the same, but have different meanings.
Thanks again for the correction.