Gov't Must Be Circumspect In The Use Of Social Media - Atik Replies Gov't

General Secretary of the People's National Convention (PNC) Atik Mohammed has cautioned government against its excessive use of the social media to engage in official communication with Ghanaians. Atik Mohammed was anxious that the Government of Ghana has not adopted any means to control the abuse of social media but yet channel official messages through such media. It is obvious that President John Dramani Mahama is very active on social media such as Facebook. Other government officials including the Flagstaff House also have created social platforms to engage the citizenry. Though it is not entirely abusive to adopt the modern trend of disseminating information, Atik Mohammed however stresses that the Government of Ghana should not patch official messages through social media. This is because such media is porous and can be manipulated by faceless individuals with the aim of causing fear and panic in the society, he noted. “Government has not been very circumspect in the use of social media. They’ve given that space in our governance systems for these things to happen. Even if you want to send communication like this through social media, it should be protected. It should be difficult for people to imitate it so that should something like that occur, everybody will be aware that it’s from the Flagstaff House. What they are doing is not unique. “There is nothing exclusive about it. It’s a normal typing that anybody can type and so on, and so forth. But if it is official communication form government, it should look different," Atik Mohammed said on Peace FM's Kokrokoo regarding an alleged leaked information of President Mahama's reshuffle of some Ministers in the country. A statement went viral on Social Media platforms Thursday, purporting that the President has removed Labour and Finance Ministers, Haruna Iddrisu and Seth Tekper respectively from office. Following the social media statement, Communications Minister, Edward Omane Boamah in a text message toPeacefmonline.com denied the alleged leaked information and asked Ghanaians to ignore it.

Source: Adu Gyamfi Ameyaw/Peacefmonline.com/Ghana