Zimbabwe’s Minister of Information, Media and Broadcasting Services, Chris Mushowe has issued the government’s latest warning against social media abuse.
According to the Herald, this was mentioned at a media briefing where Mushowe highlighted how the state was aware of Zimbabweans in the diaspora circulating messages of terror on social media.
The Minister also referenced #ThisFlag and #Tajamuka as online campaigns with links to intelligence services of hostile nations citing #ThisFlag founder Evan Mawarire’s move to the United States as evidence.
He also pointed out how the government is aware of activists in Zimbabwe collaborating with “diaspora cyber terrorists”.
The statements from the Minister follow a string of other warnings against social media abuse issued by the government over the past month and a half. Zimbabwe has experienced an upsurge in online civic engagement and political activism popularised by campaigns like #ThisFlag and #Tajamuka.
The telecoms regulator, POTRAZ, as well as the Minister of ICT and the army, have all issued warnings against the abuse of social media platforms reaffirming the State’s ability to deal with any form of unrest that is encouraged through online means.
These warnings have been heavily criticised by citizens who have identified them as threats infringing on the freedom of expression.
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2 comments
l urge minister Mushowe to put his house in order first before he issue threats. We know Zimbabwe gvt have nothing besides word of mouth as evidence to his claims. People use different use names on social media and you need more than threats to collect evidence and make sure you are getting the right person.
We only have Bindura Uni to counter against the world, no infrastructure what-so-ever. To my best knowledge, internet soldiers are still being trained on how to be on the internet, l bet they will spend a lot of their time on youtube.
Here is my take:
UK gvt spend millions of pounds building their embassy in Harare, what does our minister think the british where putting inside that embassy?
UK gvt have GCHQ, and recently infused MI6 into it for internet surveillance and cyber counter terrorism, what do we have here in Zim?
There is internet filtering centre at Canary wharf which use web crawlers to look for anything tasked of interest, cameras with face recognition at points of interest etc, what do we have?
It is important for our minister to evaluate our gvt capabilities first before tasimudza hapwa.
My take is that the govt itself has terrorist tendencies which are fully documented. It’s president has clearly announced that his party has “degrees in violence”. A very stupid statement coming from a head of state in this info age. So they must buzz off – they are an illegitimate govt anyway.