Government is Opening a Center to Monitor Social Media

The minister of Security, Muruli Mukasa was on Thursday at Imperial Hotel, briefing the media on the updates of Simcard registration when the question of shutting down Social media sites came up.

“We shall not close them but will monitor their activities through our center, We are opening a center to monitor social media who are bent to cause a security threat to the nation,” he said

He pointed out that Government looks to apply for a court order to enable it check email accounts of those who want to threaten the security of the county.

“We shall apply for a court order in order to check those who are using social media to propagate threats to the security of the country.”

The center will be managed by Government security operatives and IT experts.

He said there will be no more extension of Simcard registration and advised those who have not done that yet to take advantage of the validation period to register.

According to him, 15 (91%) out of 16 million mobile telephone subscribers have so far registered.

The minister gave telecommunications service providers 90 days to validate the data.

The executive director of Uganda Communications Commission (UCC), Godfrey Mutabazi backed the minister on monitoring social media content, saying the commission can trace security threat messages through social media.

“We can have access to trace it [security threats] but we shall not ban the social media,” Mutabazi said.