President Kaguta Museveni Ugandan, also the winner of the just concluded Ugandan election has said that social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and others are not allowed to control what speech should be acceptable to Ugandans or not, calling it an unjust assumption of power.
The President had previously shut down the internet prior to the general elections which were held on January 14. On Monday, after the internet was restored, Presidential spokesman, Ofwono Opondo, in a statement explained that administration took that decision to stop the spread of hate speeches and violence, as well as discredit the integrity of the election.
In explaining his reason for the shutdown, he mentioned the anger of his administration over attempts of Twitter and Facebook to silence the speech of pro-government handles by removing hundreds of accounts linked to government officers.
He emphasized that the shutdown of social media is unfortunate, but it inevitable.
“No way anybody can come and play around with our country to say ‘it is good, it is bad’ we will stop this one, we cannot accept that,” he said.
Opondo added that social media was reopened as the administration is now confident that Ugandans have come to terms with the results of the election, but is still on alert in case the Social media will still be used to intrude into the nation’s politics.
Museveni, having been faced with a lot of criticisms for the shutdown, tendered an apology in his statement on Monday.
“I am very sorry for the inconveniences to those who have been using these channels,” he said.
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