This reflection is inspired by the fact that although every Cameroonian who have lived through the experience of rising hate speech against individuals and whole tribes and communities for sometime now would applaud the government’s bill currently being examined in parliament as the right step in the right direction, it is to say the least, a direct affront to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly online as well as Yaoundé’s frantic efforts to control the online narrative as parliament was supposed to be first allowed to debate and adopt the comprehensive piece of legislation that set out citizens’ rights online as proposed to parliament by civil society earlier this year.
It is the more informed by the fact that just as Cameroonians watched unopposed the debate and passage of the terrorism bill in parliament few years ago where the definition of terrorism was left to the whims and caprices of the government and today even a misdemeanor act is interpreted by government as an act of terrorism, the current law being debated for adoption in parliament commits the same error of allowing the definition of what constitutes hate speech online at the mercy of the judicial officers
It is also inspired by the fact that rather than waste taxpayers money and law makers precious time amending Section 241 of the 2016 penal code to carve out a piece of stand alone piece of legislation on hate speech when we know for a fact the wonderful work Facebook and other social media platforms have done in less than two years through algorithms to check hate speech online and sanction perpetrators each such behavior is brought to their notice, only goes a long way to suggest that government may be targeting it’s political enemies especially in the run up to parliamentary and local elections
Make no mistake about it: taking steps to check hate speech especially in an increasingly polarized society like ours is the way to go. That ours is the most connected generation and yet the most divided: divided by language, culture, religion, race, tribe, and by those who want us to be divided, is a subject of serious concern. The question to ask is whether the way out of this situation is through legislation when we know for a fact that government picks and chooses when it comes to applicability of legislation. We are not unaware of the fact that the 1990 Liberty laws give citizens and political associations the full right to organize public meetings and protests as the case maybe but once these meetings are against government the organizers are refused authorization on flimsy grounds of likely disturbance of public order.
As one of the few Cameroonians who is trainer of trainers for Facebook in the Central African zone and one who since engaged Facebook authorities to be ready to implement a reconstruction project in Cameroon immediately the conflict raging the two English speaking regions ends entitled ‘After Hate, Life’, it is incumbent on me to alert the public to the negative impact of the bill currently being debated in parliament as its selective implementation would go a long way to attract a negative international image for Cameroon.
For one thing, Cameroon is behaving as if it does not recognize the important work civil rights movements have been doing this far to engage Governments and technology companies to tackle not only hate speech but fake news, sexual harassment and disinformation online. Social media watchers would have noticed how Facebook and WhatsApp have improved it’s community standards and how hate promoters’ accounts are systematically suspended and WhatsApp shares have been reduced to a maximum of four. In addition to the algorithms employed by Facebook and WhatsApp, Facebook now plans to increase its manpower from 10 000 workers to a 20 000 staff strength by the close of the year. What this means now is that it suffices to report a Facebook account or any social media account and after due process, it’s owners are sanctioned for a reasonable period of time. The problem rather is that research reveals that Cameroonians hardly report social media accounts with offensive content and it cannot be legislation to handle an easy education and sensitization job. It suffices to read the ‘Community Standards’ of every social media platform to know how to report offensive content given that social media platforms are more robust on sanctioning hateful or inappropriate content.
The second reason why the present bill must be sent back for a second reading and rewriting if it must exist is that it doesn’t offer any definition of terms. And that is a serious cause for concern for any right thinking Cameroonian who knows how government functions. If the bill is unable to define hate speech to specifically mean speech that incites violence or hostility against an individual or a group because of their belonging to a tribe or community it could make government come against individuals who criticize the powers that be for their belonging to a particular tribe or community or region. Recall that one of the charges against the renowned Cameroon Muslim scholar, Abdul Karim was the fact that in one of his Facebook outings he referred to francophones as frogs and until he showed the inappropriate or provocative content the francophone uploaded against Anglophones to provoke his wrath did they drop the charge. Worthy of note that this current bill as it stands targets over a thousand social media accounts.
In the last two years, Julie Owono’s Internet Without Borders have done marvelous research in Cameroon for Facebook on hate speech. Following their findings, dangerous hate speech has been rising to a crescendo since the last Presidential elections and may increase as fresh elections are announced. Three key promoters of hate speech following their research have been ‘Brigade Anti Sardina’, Brigade Anti Tontina’, and more dangerously ‘Parle Que Betis’. You can decipher the rest as evidence exist to the effect that government officials have actively promoted this with the ‘Parle Que Betis’ the group positioning itself as a special status group. Evidence also exist to the effect that government has also been sponsoring strolls against tribes and linguistic and cultural communities.
As a researcher specializing on online content regulation and online policy advocacy, I make bold to advise government to reread the draft law and work with civil society to make sure rather than insisting on punishing perpetrators, they are forced to take down content within 24 hours, for example. As Andre Oboler, the CEO of the Online Hate Prevention Institute, has noted: ‘The longer the content stays available, the more damage it can inflict on the victims and empower the perpetrators. If you remove content at an early stage you can limit the exposure. According to Oboler, attempting just to punish the perpetrators as the bill under examination at the National Assembly seeks to do, is like ‘cleaning up the litter..and it doesn’t stop people from littering…. but if you do not take care of the problem it just piles up and further exacerbates’. In Singapore, for example, a bill exist where each time dangerous hate speech or misinformation is identified, the author is forced by law to publish a rejoinder side by the side misleading content without necessarily taking it down. It’s only when the perpetrator fails to correct such content that court action is contemplated.
Ideas are not lacking on how government could partner with civil society to clean up the social media environment. For this to happen government must be seen to be pushing through the civil society bill on digital rights already tabled in parliament as private member’s bill. It should also cooperate in helping to push through yet another new bill from the digital rights community during the March 2020 parliamentary session on privacy and data protection.
As it stands now, the bill amending sections of the penal code to criminalize hate speech on Social media when all Internet intermediaries like Facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter, YouTube, Microsoft and Instagram are doing a marvelous job of curbing harmful content online through their updated ‘Community Standards’ and ‘takedown’ rules, maybe a right cause using a wrong means and an equally wrong target.
The Muteff Boy’s Take.