David Mark has never experienced the nature of democracy with its attendant freedom. So one is not perturbed by his opinion on social media. He needs to be educated on freedom and how to cope with it. That does not mean there shouldn't be some form of control over the abuse of freedom of social media. So far social media have not yet overshot its bound and they should be left alone.
One is not surprised by the over-burst of the Nigerian Senate President who never wanted the poor to have access to information.
David Mark was reported in Nigeria to have said that "telephone is not for the poor." But today his so called the poor use telephones and they express their minds on social issues in Nigeria. They use social media to express their views on the ills of the nation. They tell the global village the ruts in Nigerian leadership and perhaps that is what David Mark is worried about.
If you don't have skeletons in your cupboard, you don't bother yourself about negative report coming from social media but let me say, where there is no fire there cannot be smoke.
Segun Ogungbemi.
Sent from my iPhone
--"The emergence of social media like facebook, twitter, blackberry messenger, YouTube etc have changed the face of media practice by making information sharing easier, faster and quicker. But this is not without its demerits. Social media has become a threat to the ethics of media practice and good governance because of its accessibility and absolute freedom. Every freedom carries a responsibility. Even in advanced democracies, where we all agree that good governance is practiced, there is no absolute freedom.I therefore believe that there must be a measure to check the negative tendencies of the social media in our country. I say this because media practice, particularly journalism, process its news gathering and dissemination. It also operates a feedback mechanism and where the practitioners err there is room for rebuttal. But in the social media a faceless character can post any information that is absolutely false and misleading but will never retract it. At the end of the day one is bombarded with questions over what one has no business with."- David Markhttp://abangmercy.wordpress.com/2012/07/29/full-text-of-senate-president-david-marks-address-at-the-media-retreat-on-the-role-of-the-media-and-good-governance-in-nigeria/- Ikhide
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