Social media usage policy in the offing

Ghana is on the verge of rolling out a social media policy to streamline social media usage in the country, a Deputy Minister of Communication, Mr Edward Ato Sarpong, has said.

He indicated that the drafting of the policy was at an advanced stage and that the final document would soon be ready.

Mr Sarpong made the disclosure at the opening of the third Annual Psychology Conference in Accra.

The conference, which was on the theme, 'Social Media in Contemporary Societies: Effects on the Family, Organisations, Schools and Politics,' was organised by the Ghana Psychological Association.

Collaboration
Mr Sarpong said while social media had enhanced citizen journalism where unnoticed events that impacted negatively on segments of the society were exposed, it had also led to an abuse of freedom of speech, because anyone could sit anywhere and post content about another person for the whole world to read without the affected person having the benefit of responding.

Another ill side to social media, he said, was virtual retaliation, where persons, whose relationships turned sour, resorted to the posting of nude images of their partners just to embarrass them.

Psychology and social media
A Social Psychologist and Vice-Dean of the School of Graduate Studies of the University of Ghana (UG), Professor Ama de-Graft Aikins, drew a link between psychology and social media.

She said a national social media policy would check the negative effects of social media on the vulnerable in the society.

According to her, the effect of social media on the vulnerable segments of the society, especially adolescents, the youth and women, was becoming enormously terrifying, and the need for such a policy was, therefore, crucial.

She said social media had its positive and negative effects and that a national policy in that regard ought to be geared towards reaping the fullest benefits that such a tool provided for national development.

Unchecked usage dangerous
Dr Aikins pointed out that social media influence could compound the already serious mental problem confronting the nation.

She explained that the negative effects of social media which emanated from addiction led to anxiety, depression, general discontent and sleep problems.

She also expressed worry about young people being exposed to uncensored pornographic materials and other sensitive pictorial data that impacted negatively on their development.

Besides, she said, social media had the tendency to create 'an unfiltered self where people put out things without thinking of their implications'.

National Media Commission
The Chairman of the National Media Commission (NMC), Mr Kwasi Gyan Apenteng, who also echoed the need for a national policy on social media, said because of the unmediated nature of social media messages, the various layers of interventions in a conventional media that ensured truth, accuracy and credibility of content were largely absent.

He, therefore, called on journalists not to be quick in picking information from the social media and placing them within the mainstream media, but should always be guided by the principle of checking and checking again to ensure the credibility of such information before putting them out.

'Social media is good for political participation to enhance our democracy but the onus lies on us to deploy this tool to our advantage. The problem does not lie with the tool but with us,' he said.

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