Government To Embark on Social Media Literacy Public Education Campaign

The Government, through the Broadcasting Commission, will be embarking on a social media literacy public education drive, to reduce misinformation in the digital space.

This was disclosed by Minister without Portfolio in the Office of the Prime Minister with responsibility for Information, Skills and Digital Transformation, Senator Dr. the Hon. Dana Morris Dixon, at the June 26 Post Cabinet press briefing, at Jamaica House.

“In terms of the way forward, what we will be doing is focusing on social media literacy. We will be using our Broadcasting Commission, and they have already independently started to work on a public education campaign that helps our Jamaican people to know what is true and what is not,” the Minister explained.

“The primary thing we will be doing at this time is enhancing public education to help persons realise what is real, and what is not real,” she added.

Dr. Morris Dixon said the prevalence of disinformation in the public space makes it necessary for the Government to take steps to discourage the publishing of untrue information, particularly in the social media space.

“It is important in a democracy that we can have dissent… and that’s fine and that’s what a democracy is, but not to encourage persons to post blatant lies online. What the Government is saying is, what is posted on social media needs to be based on truth and in that vein, what we have said is, in those instances where we know there are individuals that have posted things that are not true, that we will have to go after those individuals in terms of prosecuting them, and there are laws that are available,” she said.

“I think the goal of everything that we are doing is ensuring that we are in an environment that is based on truth,” the Minister emphasised.

Noting that there is no “new legislation at this time”, Dr. Morris Dixon said there are, in fact, existing laws that can be used in the prosecution of persons found to be publishing false or misleading information.

“We have the Cybercrimes Act (and) laws around libel. There are laws that exist and that can be used in prosecuting individuals who do not speak the truth online. But before we even get there, let us have public education and a discourse on what is the right approach going forward,” she said.