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Papua New Guinea’s communications minister has said the government will ban Facebook for a month to weigh its impact on the population. The government is also evaluating the creation of a new state-run social network.
Communications Minister Sam Basil said that the shutdown would enable the department and National Research Institute to conduct further research on how the social network was being used by users.
“The time will allow information to be collected to identify users that hide behind fake accounts, users that upload pornographic images, users that post false and misleading information on Facebook to be filtered and removed.
“This will allow genuine people with real identities to use the social network responsibly,” Mr Basil said.
The Minister said that the department could better analyse the positive impact it would have on the population during the month-long shutdown and weigh the impact of progress without or with its use.
Mr Basil said that his Ministry was trying to enforce the Cyber Crime Act which was legislated in 2016.
“The Act has already been passed, so what I’m trying to do is to ensure the law is enforced accordingly where perpetrators can be identified and charged accordingly. We cannot allow the abuse of Facebook to continue in the country.
