Communication Minister, Sam Nartey George, has dismissed claims that government is seeking to regulate social media.
He explained that the new bill being prepared by his ministry is not about controlling digital platforms but about addressing misinformation, disinformation, and hate speech across both traditional and new media.
“At no point in time have we said we want to regulate social media. We simply said that the fact that you use new media for broadcast does not put you above the ethics of the broadcast journalist. You must hold yourselves to the same standards that traditional media hold,” he said on JoyNews’ PM Express on September 30.
The Minister said what government is pushing for is self-regulation among content creators, backed by a legal framework that covers all media.
“We’ve discussed that with them, and then we are working on a misinformation, disinformation, hate speech and other incidental speeches bill. That is not just going to regulate social media, it will also regulate traditional media,” he explained.
He revealed that the legal drafting of the bill has been completed, and the next step is broad consultations.
“We’re going to start the stakeholder engagements very soon, because the law itself has been crafted, and the legal work has been finished. We’ll do the stakeholder engagements as part of the validation process before it goes to Cabinet and comes to Parliament,” he said.
Providing more context, Sam George highlighted the wide scope of work underway at the Communication Ministry, stressing that the misinformation bill is only one of several major initiatives.
“We’re working on 15 different pieces of legislation at the ministry. As we speak, part of my team is up in the north on the innovation and startup bill to regulate the innovation and startup space in our country and be able to attract proper VCs,” he said.
The Minister also outlined ongoing efforts to support Ghanaian content creators.
“I have had meetings with multiple associations of bloggers, and we’ve been dealing with TikTok. We’re getting TikTok to, for the first time on the continent, fly in a team to come and help our content creators do capacity building to improve their monetisation,” he said.
He added that new payment systems are being developed to address long-standing barriers to online income.
“At the same time, we’ve set up an engagement between TikTok and GCB Bank to be able, in the absence of PayPal in the country, which we’re also working on with the Bank of Ghana, to offer a payment channel for our content creators here,” he revealed.
Sam George insisted that the government’s intention is not censorship but creating a balanced media environment where both traditional and digital outlets are subject to the same professional standards.