Vice President Dr Bharrat Jagdeo on Thursday dismissed cries that the revised cybercrime law and associated regulations will target social media personalities.
Speaking during his weekly media conference, he noted that the updated law will target criminals, rather than ordinary citizens.
Criminals he referred to includes “people who like to extort [others] using cyber space…or people who like exploiting people [like] taking a photo and blackmailing people for all sorts of reasons, people who exploit our children like child pornography and those things.”
The revision of the Cybercrime Act of 2018 was announced this week by Attorney General Anil Nandlall who noted that social media has become a weapon that causes damage to people’s reputation, people’s character, that of their family. The amendments, he said, will be tailored according to the United Nations Convention related to the use of cyberspace – a convention that is currently being drafted with Guyana’s input.
Following this disclosure, many persons have argued that the Government will be clamping down on free speech.
However, Jagdeo said this is not so. “We believe in free media, we believe in people freely expressing their views on the internet, we are not for censorship on the internet, we would promote people’s right to freely express themselves…even when it is targeted to the Government,” he said.
Jagdeo urged citizens not to listen to the naysayers who are focused on creating “hysteria.”
“Don’t buy into this hysteria that we are coming after anyone – influencers, social media commentators or ordinary citizens, it is nonsense,” he added.
The Cybercrime act was passed in 2018 by the former APNU+AFC administration.
In 2022, the AG indicated that the Act will be repealed and modernised in keeping with recommendations of the United Nations Convention on Countering the Use of Information and Communication Technologies for Criminal Purposes.
A committee is currently drafting that convention on which Guyana has two representatives.
