In a shocking move to regulate social media platforms in the country, legislators in Kenya have proposed a new bill that requires Facebook and WhatsApp group admins, bloggers to have a licence to operate.

Known as the The Kenya Information and Communication (Amendment) Bill 2019, the bill requires the above persons to get a licence from the Communications Authority (CA) of Kenya before setting up groups.

Group admins will be required to provide their physical addresses, including residential areas, the number of members in their groups and the objective of the whole group.

Asides permission to set up groups, administrators must monitor content shared in their groups, ensure that all members are above the age of 18, and remove any member that posts inappropriate content. According to the bill, group administrators that allow offending comments on their platforms will be prosecuted and jailed.

The bill in essence seeks to regulate all “online publishing and discussion, media sharing, blogging, social networking, document and data sharing repositories, social media applications, social bookmarking and widgets.”

As a result, the CA is also charged with building a registry of bloggers and creating a code of conduct for all operators. Bloggers found running blogs without licence from the Communications Authority (CA) are liable to being jailed for 2 years or paying a fine of up to 500,000Sh.

The bill, as expected, has not been received well. It is perceived as a radical move to regulate social media in ways that will most likely infringe on people’s right to communicate and enjoy net neutrality.

Source: technext.ng