Supa Mandiwanzira recently announced that government had no intention to ban social media – they just wanna come up with a bunch of laws to penalize abusers. So all of you abusive people posting abusive and boring photos of your children on Facebook your time is up! Mandiwanzira said they wanted to focus on those guilty of revenge porn - which I think in ZANU PF may mean any video footage of ex-ZANU PF members holding a rowdy press conference. Mandiwanzira said they wanted to ‘regulate’ and not ‘ban’ social media. But we’ve all heard that word ‘regulate’ before from government. No thanks. Then Bob has also contributed his two cents when he began extolling the virtues of the Chinese Firewall that so effectively censors that country’s internet. So what will we get in Zim: the Great Zimbabwean Durawall? Knowing the inefficiency of our wonderful government I expect it will be more of a rickety fence with a bit of barbed wire than a proper firewall. But it’s censorship nonetheless.
This is coupled with recent arrests of online journalists such as those working for the Zim Sentinel online publication. There is also now apparently a Cyber Bill circulating and no doubt this year we will see government trying to table some anti-internet laws under the guise of ‘regulation’ and all that bollocks. And you can understand where the ruling party’s worries come from. There’s been an explosion of online expression in Zimbabwe over the last few years as access to mobile broadband internet has expanded. From the original insurgent blog by ol’ Baba Jukwa, to the more recent online platforms like 263chat and the burgeoning online TV scene by the likes of Bustop TV: the internet is the new frontier for free expression. I mean you just have to take a look at Twitter with the uproarious political tweets by the likes of Joe Black and Cynic Harare to know what I’m talking about.
We like our internet in Zimbabwe. It’s a space where we express ourselves freely and openly. And we’ll be damned if you take it. So there is a real need for bloggers, activists and journalists to unite and fight potential clampdowns on social media and the arrest of citizen journalists. We need to be united in opposition to Big Brother-style Cyber Laws. Otherwise it will be a case of: First they arrested one blogger and I said nothing coz I don’t blog. Then they shut down a Facebook video site and I said nothing coz I don’t make video… You get the picture?