The blogger who was arrested over fake news in Ghana

General News of Saturday, 3 November 2018

Source: Myjoyonline.com

2018-11-03

Fake News1play videoFile photo

There seems to be a silent crack down on Fake News by the police.

This week, a female blogger was arrested by the police for publishing a false report about popular Kumawood actor, Kojo Nkansah, aka Lillwin.

In the blogger’s false story, she claimed that the actor had knocked down a pedestrian with his customized vehicle and sped off.

According to her, she was sitting at the reception area of Accra-based Peace FM when she overheard the conversation between the actor and the receptionist that someone had been to the radio station to complain about him knocking another person down with his vehicle.

“I only overhead this part of the conversation. I don’t know what car it was, when it happened or what time it happened but since I am a blogger I thought I could make something out of this.

“I didn’t know who this person was, I didn’t speak to anybody and didn’t know if this story was true or not,” Cindy told Joy News’ Evans Mensah.

She was picked up by the Tesano police and kept in custody for a night after they were informed about the Fake News.

Cindy has since apologized to the actor and the public for putting up the false article but her case with the police is yet to be concluded.

Information Minister, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, last week told Parliament he was open to a legislation against Fake News.

He drew from the example of Kenya where the east African country’s Parliament recently passed a tough law against the phenomenon of publishing false news.

In Kenya’s anti-fake news law, a guilty blogger or publisher could be fined as much as $50,000 dollars and jailed for up to two years.

On Friday’s edition of Ghana Connect, panelists discussed whether or not Ghana should follow Kenya’s example in passing a tough law that imposes hefty fines and imprisonment on publishers on fake news.

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