SERAP Urges Senate President and Speaker to Reject Social Media Regulation Bill

The Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project, SERAP, has urged the Senate President, Godswill Akpabio and Speaker, House of Representatives, Tajudeen Abbas, “to reject the recently reintroduced social media regulation bill.”

SERAP noted that the passage of the bill “would unduly restrict the rights to freedom of expression and privacy,” and urged President Bola Tinubu’s administration to stop its efforts to compel technological firms like Google and YouTube to restrict such “fundamental human rights.”

According to SERAP, the bill would “criminalize the legitimate and lawful exercise of human rights.”

In the letter dated October 14, and signed by SERAP deputy director, Kolawole Oluwadare, the organization said, “Social media is neither Nigeria’s problem nor a monster.

He noted thy any regulation of it would have arbitrary and excessive effects, and cause incalculable damage, both in material and human rights terms.

He also noted that Any move to regulate social media would be inconsistent and incompatible with the provisions of the Nigerian Constitution 1999 [as amended] and the country’s international human rights obligations.”

SERAP warned that it “shall” take the National Assembly and the FG to court upon the passage of the social media bill.

It advised the FG to maximize opportunities that abound on social media and look into the nation’s growing “social and economic inequalities.”