NCA pulls down 200 inflammatory and gruesome videos on social media

The National Communication Authority (NCA) said that it pulled down 200 inflammatory and gruesome images and videos which had been circulated on social media following last week’s violent riots targeting Sudanese nationals.

By Benjamin Takpiny

The National Communication Authority (NCA) said that it pulled down 200 inflammatory and gruesome images and videos which had been circulated on social media following last week’s violent riots targeting Sudanese nationals.

“Our effort was geared toward reducing the circulation of inflammatory and gruesome images that were dominating the Internet platform at that material hour of that day, and this decision, of course, had saved lives because some of those videos were taken off the circulations, and we engaged with the technology owners. We communicated to them. We gave them some of the content we have identified, particularly videos and images, and most of them were removed,” said Director General of NCA, Napoleon Adok Gai during Tuesday’s media briefing.

Adok appeared for questing before members of the parliamentary committee on Information Communication Technology and Postal Services and the Committee of Security and Public Order.

“The reason we took that drastic measure is because the country does not have a content filtering mechanism,” he said.

Adok said that Facebook and TikTok are the most popular applications, adding that this is why they were targeted for suspension.

“We took the decision based on public good, if we had a content filtering mechanism, we could have then highlighted those specific accounts that we see circulating something that is unacceptable to our cultures. And of course, this is our mandate. Section 9 of the National Communication Authority confer on NCA a lot of powers, including to be able to limit the use of technology that interferes with our way of life and that counters our values and cultures,” he said.

The NCA lifted on Monday the temporary suspension of Facebook and TikTok which came into force on January 22nd.

However, he disclosed that they are still engaging with Facebook to go after those who are still posting inflammatory and gruesome images and videos.

“We are also trying to prevent any future shutdown because when we are able to identify those accounts that are contravening the law, then we shall not need to shut down any application in future. We will only go after those who are violating the law and we tell the law enforcement these are the ones. So this is what we did and we are aware that it has inconvenienced a lot of people,” said Adok.

The Chairperson of the Information Committee in the Parliament, Oliver Mori Benjamin, invited Adok to brief law makers on the decision taken by his agency to temporarily suspend Facebook and TikTok.

He noted that riots that were sparked by the Killings of South Sudanese nationals on January 11, by the Sudan Armed Forces in Wad Medani, AlJazirah State were exploited by criminals to loot and vandalize shops.

“The Southerners all over the corners of South Sudan found that they were being assaulted, and they stood together to react, and always when people react as a mob, there are advantages and disadvantages, let us say for instance, here in Juba, those incidents which took place were exploited by some wrong groups of people from among the youth who took the chance to go and break into shops, looting and so on. And then even the attack on some innocent Northerners who are here in South Sudan was not appropriate. So those were bad negative effects,” he said.

MORI said that they will give government a chance to take measures to respond to the situation in Sudan.

“As long as our government has taken stringent measures to respond to the situation in Sudan, you might have also followed on the TV how our Minister of Foreign Affairs in his address to the UN Security Council talked about it. So let us give the chance to our government of South Sudan to handle that issue and let us be as cool as we were before,” he said.

 Mori also assured  that the friendship with the Sudanese people and other foreigners must be guarded for the good of the country.

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