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GEORGETOWN, Guyana, Jun 24, CMC – The Guyana government has wrtten to Meta, the parent company of Facebook, seeking to establish a formal relationship, as it is moves ahead with plans to clamp down on unregulated social media use for children.
But Attorney General, Anil Nandlal, speaking on his weekly “Issues in the News” programme on Tuesday night, said there is no ulterior motive behind the Government’s move.
Nandlall has rejected claims that the government’s ongoing consultations on social media regulation are aimed at censorship, insisting that the initiative is focused exclusively on protecting children from harmful online content.
“We should have had a relationship with Facebook a long time ago,” he told viewers, adding that any future regulatory framework would require cooperation from parents, guardians, and educators.
“This initiative has no ulterior motive, no political content, and is not inspired or driven by any form of desire to control or censor. It is to accord paramount importance and protection to the welfare of our children,” Nandlall said, noting that state alone cannot monitor children’s online activity.
He is also contending that there is no political move to censor anyone on the platform, but stated that the nation’s children remain at risk of being exposed to the dark side of the internet.
“There is pornography, there is violence, there are violent materials and there are materials there that a child should be shielded from. If you don’t appreciate that then I don’t think that you belong to civilized society, if you don’t see the dangers that ban unregulated web, and unregulated social media access, if you don’t see the evil and harm that that can have on our children, then I am not speaking to you and this has nothing to do with politics,” the Attorney General said.
Nandlall said the the Irfaan Ali government is not trying to stop the use of Facebook in Guyana, but simply putting systems in place to ensure that children are protected and that Guyana is not alone in that respect.
“Facebook is a global platform, you can’t stop Facebook, nobody is trying to stop Facebook, every country is trying to regulate what goes on in the cyberspace and we are moving in direction.
“The United Nation has produced a model legislation, a 177 countries have already signed. So this is not something that’s not going to happen, it is happening. How are you going to regulate this global platform if you don’t have a relationship with the global platform?” Nandlall questioned, using the opportunity to criticise the opposition for not supporting the initiative.
“This initiative is devoid of any disadvantage because our children will continue to have access but it will now be managed. They will continue to have access to educational programmes but they will not have access to pornography, and what they have access to would be dependent on their age,” Nandlall said, adding that Guyana has nothing to fear as the intended legislation and initiative are not intended to control or censor, but to accord paramount importance and protection to the welfare of children.
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