The Department of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is still waiting on the Government to release over K12 million earmarked for its Social Media Management Desk.
Minister for ICT, Timothy Masiu in a statement earlier this week highlighted that the Department has not received approved government funding for social media management since 2018.
He said: “A Social Media Task Force was established in 2018 with an endorsement of K12.8m to address misinformation. Funding was never made available for this despite funding requests through writing and requests incorporated in Budget Submissions, over the years.”
In 2020-2021, we redesigned the concept and established through Cabinet a Social Media Management Desk within the Department of ICT. The purpose of this Desk is currently to:
- Ensure that Government Social Media Pages are active and consistent in their messaging;
- Monitor and report to Facebook and take down fake Government Pages and;
- Monitor and report to Facebook and take down misinformation posts, disinformation posts, and further to report to Police and activity that is criminal in nature.
Minister Masiu further stated: “When Cabinet established the Social Media Management Desk, it also endorsed for K1.5m to operationalize the Desk. Despite letters following up with Treasury, the department has not received funds for such an important activity.”
He noted that National Security Council in December 2020 also endorsed for funding support. The Minister said, to date the Department has resourced the Desk in-house with cyber analysts.
“We have established a working relationship with Facebook,” he said.
On a weekly basis, the Department of ICT takes down fake accounts impersonating the Prime Minister or Office of the Prime Minister.
For the past four months, together with Facebook and the Social Media Management Desk, the ICT Department removes between 50 and 100 misinformation posts related to COVID-19 vaccines on popular PNG-related groups and pages on a weekly basis.
“We now have over 1.4 million Papua New Guineans on Facebook living in the post-truth era. We need to have social media management tools to manage misinformation and disinformation.
“We also need government agencies to stop up their social media presence and combat misinformation and disinformation by pushing out verified information on a regular basis,” Minister Masiu added