By Derick Tsimba

Government recently gazetted the new Cyber Security and Data Protection Bill which parliament is expected to pass into law soon. The bill is intended at protecting the nation and the citizens from harmful and malicious spread of information.

Part of the bill states that it will protect people from harassment and bullying by any person who unlawfully and intentionally generates information on an information system by enforcing a prison term of up to 10 years.

“Any person who unlawfully and intentionally by means of a computer or information system generates and sends any data message to another person, or posts on any material whatsoever on any electronic medium accessible by any person, with the intent to coerce, intimidate, harass, threaten, bully or cause substantial emotional distress, or to degrade, humiliate or demean the person of another or to encourage a person to harm himself or herself, shall be guilty of an offence and liable to a fine not exceeding level 10 or to imprisonment for a period not exceeding ten years or both such fine and such imprisonment.  

“Any person who unlawfully and intentionally by means of a computer or information system makes available, broadcasts or distributes data to any other person concerning an identified or identifiable person knowing it to be false with intend to cause psychological or economic harm shall be guilty of an offence and liable to a fine not exceeding level 10 or to imprisonment for a period not exceeding ten years or to both such fine and such imprisonment,” reads the Bill.

The Harare Post can report that the country continues to face challenges from international and local social media abuse whereby people peddle false information that affects the social fabric. Social media has been responsible for civil unrest in countries such as Syria.  According to a research paper, Peoples under Threat 2019: The role of social media in exacerbating violence, the paper states that, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), for example, have used ‘bot armies’ to legitimate their bombing campaign in Yemen, while rising hostilities between India and Pakistan following the killing of 40 Indian soldiers in Kashmir were stoked by the trending of rival Twitter hash tags by nationalists in the two countries.