Social Media has now become a main issue of concern for law enforcement officers as its usage has triggered and continues to cause a waste of the authorities’ time, unnecessary harm, panic and in severe circumstances, murder.
Senior Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) Stephen Dean while a guest on the Radio Love 97 Talk Show Issues of the Day suggested that there be the implementation of additional legislation to assist in cracking down on the social media problem.
“The public has to demand that. We have to get our law makers to look at legislation, we are given advice, but there are areas that we do look at from time to time as social media has helped us to arrest people. Facebook and WhatsApp have caused us to bring people into custody,” he said.
“You’ve seen cases where persons are displaying weapons have been taken in and put into our system, some people have been sued, people have taken up private prosecutions against individuals and we have charged people with death threats of harm. So, we look at what offenses are inconsistent with the laws that we do have on the books.”
When asked specifically about those continued hotspots of crime in the country, Senior ACP Dean noted that the time period of hotspots is in the past.
“New Providence is a hotspot and nobody is immuned,” he said.
“While areas have their challenges, I can tell you we’ve brought people in from all over New Providence; from public and private schools.”
Police officials are however still issuing a stern warning to the public, especially those who participate in the perpetuation of false information.
“We cannot say it enough , this is causing harm to individuals and panic. People have lost their jobs based on what is put on social media; its caused families to break up, so we are asking our people to be more responsible,” he said.
“Sometimes it turns on them and that’s when they want the police to work 24/7 to solve it.”
Members of the public are being urged to always seek information from the police and trusted news agencies only.
