Shutting down social media on Election Day not the best – Annan

Former Secretary-General of the United Nations, His Excellency Busumuru Kofi Annan has argued against the proposal of the Inspector General of Police (IGP), John Kudalor to shut down social media space on Election Day.

The former UN Boss speaking addressing at the 2016 edition of the Kronti and Akwamu Lecture in Accra said he thought it was never the best to try to prevent people from interacting on social media on Election Day.

“Sometimes I hear people talking about social media revolution…but if there is no leader, no direction, the revolution doesn’t hold…I don’t think it’s worth the effort,” he said.

The IGP in an interaction with the media last month announced that the Ghana Police Service was considering blocking social media across the country on election day.

His reason was that social media could be used as a tool for misinformation thus posing a danger to the nation’s security during the polls.

“At one stage I was even saying that if it becomes critical on the eve and the election day we shall block all social media as other countries have done. So we are thinking about it,” John Kudalor said.

In a later interview with Joy News, he said “If people are churning out the type of information which are quite false, then why not? The security of this nation is paramount.”

This attracted lots of backlash from the public who insisted that it was rather important to set up social media police, other than blocking it.

“People have established schools, businesses and companies on social media which I think the IGP must rather consider same instead of blocking it outright on election day,” team leader of Ghana Decides, a social media project by Blogging Ghana, Kinna Likimani advised the IGP.