‘Make stronger laws for social media!’
More meaningful and potent legislation is required in this country to regulate the use of social media.
So says Leader of the Opposition, Bishop Joseph Atherley, who said this is something to which Government must give serious consideration. Contributing yesterday morning to the debate in the Lower House on the Law Review and Law Reform Bill, Bishop Atherley suggested that the proliferation in the use of social media in Barbados, if not properly dealt with within the confines of the law, could very well get out of hand.
“People in Barbados are every day defamed by means of social media. I dread the day when my day comes, but I believe inevitably it will… That is a reality with which we have to deal and defamation laws must be made appropriately applicable to the new tech environment; else people will say what they will about people, damage their reputations, destroy their families, interfere with their career progress and all kinds of stuff,” he stated.
He also touched on the issue of cyber-crime, stating that there is a need for legislation to better counter cyber-crime in this country. He made the point while maintaining that companies that are compromised can lose hours or days of work and potential income. He linked the issue also to electoral fraud, insisting that as lawmakers it is something that they should be concerned about.
“We cannot say that this is something that relates to jurisdictions outside of our geography or even jurisdictions in the near region, but these are realities with which we have to deal… It is still a major issue in the United States with respect to manipulation of the electoral environment and even to the point of perpetrating of electoral fraud. Now we don’t want that to become our reality here,” he added.
Atherley also told the Lower House that technology has an important role to play in the development of laws in this country and the dispensing of justice.
“We live in the vortex of a tech culture today, it impacts on everything else. If we are going to strengthen our institutional justice processes we’ve got to incorporate the use of technology. If we are going to build capacity, we have to incorporate the use of technology; and if we are going to provide better access to public information then we have to incorporate the use of technology,” the Opposition Leader said.
His comments came as he said that the judicial sector is one in this country which is “most evidently” behind in terms of the use of technology.
“Our people must have critical access to justice, we must provide for greater efficiencies in the system, must make sure that the laws that are presented to the public for consumption by whomever are relevant,” he stated. (JRT)