The Cyber Crimes Act of 2015 has provided some very strict provisions that could make you liable for a fine or imprisonment, or both. We believe the section that affects you the most as a facebook fan is section 16 which we have reproduced below and recommend you read carefully.
Section 16 states that any person who publishes information or data presented in a picture, text, symbol or any other form in a computer system knowing that such information or data is false, deceptive, misleading or inaccurate, and with intent to defame, threaten, abuse, insult, or otherwise deceive or mislead the public or counselling commission of an offence, commits an offence, and shall on conviction be liable to a fine of not less than five million shillings or to imprisonment for a term of not less than three years or to both.
Therefore when you post on your facebook page information, it does not matter whether or not you are joking, you could still be committing an offence as long as it is false, or misleading or inaccurate, and your intention is to defame, threaten or mislead the public.
We believe this also applies to those who like or dislike the comment, and those who further add their comments to what was initially said. Hence your friends can also get into trouble.
For example if you post that a certain police station had police officers sleeping at night and you were not attended to, if this information was false you would fall foul of section 16.
Another example is when you make comments about service levels at public organisations, or how you were treated somewhere, if the information is false, or even inaccurate and it was deemed to be insulting, you could end up facing criminal charges under this law.
This is a very strict section of the Cyber Crimes Act and all facebook fans who forward information should be careful. Infact this would apply to Tweeter as well as Whatsapp amongst others.
The constitutionality of this section, amongst other sections, we believe is being challenged in Court on grounds that they are curtailing the freedom of speech that is enshrined in the constitution. Until the Courts make a decision, this is the law and you must be very careful of what you write in such social media.
Source: Dailynews
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