The Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) is spearheading regulation on hate speech to guide the public and prevent the state from being thrown into chaos.
The Foundation finds this necessary, as in the run up to the 2020 elections, it recorded over 500 comments on about 100 media platforms relating to hate speech.
The Foundation, in order to preserve the peace, cohesion and democracy of the country, on Wednesday, this week, engaged stakeholders on how hate speech could be nipped in the bud. The engagement was held under the theme: “Media, hate speech and democratic consideration in Ghana.”
Suggesting how hate speech could be curtailed, the Chairman of the National Peace Council, Reverend Dr. Ernest Adu-Gyamfi, urged the media to exercise caution on what information they churn out on their platforms.
According to him, Ghana would lose her status as the gateway to Africa, if the media did not eschew negative communication and rather build on positivity of diversity for better growth and development in all sectors of the country. “We need to develop a robust media framework that is able to prevent hate, indecent and abusive expressions,” he said.
Dr. Adu-Gyamfi added that the use of hate speech and other forms of indecent expressions in the media space if not checked could potentially get worse and emergence of serious disturbances.
He also blamed the menace on the decline of professional standards of ethical journalism, as well as the influx of political ownership of the media houses. He indicated that the country continued to soar high on the Global Peace Index, which was a great feat that must be jealously guarded.
Explaining, he noted that peace attracts development and foreign direct investments, as no one would to do business in a conflict-prone country hence the need to protect the nation’s peace.
The Executive Director of the MFWA, Mr. Sulemana Braimah, in his remarks, said there was the need for deeper reflections on how to strengthen and consolidate Ghana’s democracy.
“The need for such reflections on democratic consolidation in Ghana have become even more critical given the overwhelming evidence of democratic recession around the world generally, and our region of West Africa in particular.”
“Such introspection has become necessary because as a nation, we are witnessing a number of fractures that do not only undermine democracy, but point to systemic fragilities that have great potential to weaken and undermine the strength and resilience of our democracy,” he added.
He mentioned that one of the greatest threats to democracy is hate speech, which is sometimes perpetrated under the guise of robust political rhetoric.
The problem of hate speech, he said, was also being aided largely by unregulated, a highly partisan traditional media sphere, and the use of social media platforms.
Ahead of the 2020 general elections, he revealed that his outfit documented as many as 582 incidents of indecent campaign language on radio.
He said out of the number, there were 313 incidences of insulting and offensive remarks, followed by 202 incidents of unsubstantiated allegations and 28 incidents of comments inciting violence.
While these types of expressions may not necessarily pass for a typical hate speech, Mr Braimah said they certainly constituted potent precursors to hate speech.
According to him, Ghana’s democracy had endured challenges of corruption, weak public institutions and bad governance “but it may not have the capacity to endure yet another threat as serious as politics of hate speech.”
He said “the early signs are clear and we cannot afford to wait for a full blown hate speech pandemic before we act,” he stressed.
The President of the Ghana Journalists Association (GJA), Mr. Albert Dwumfour, urged media professionals and proprietors to be wary of engaging people, “especially those whose specialty is inciting citizens through hate speech.”
