The Minister of Information Communication Technology, Postal and Courier Services, Kazembe Kazembe has expressed concern over the manner in which social media is been abused in Zimbabwe especially by people bent on causing civil unrest in this country.
Addressing people who gathered in Beitbridge to witness the official opening of one of the 146 Community Information Centres this afternoon, Kazembe said technological knowledge possessed by Zimbabweans was being used for bad things.
“I have for a long time watched from a distance as things happen. A lot has been brought about by the advancements in technology, but some of the advancements have not been put to good use. We cannot run away from the fact that we need technological advancements as a country because a country can also be judged by its technological advancements. However, it is disheartening to see that most of our people have gained this knowledge to put it into bad use,” bemoaned Kazembe.
He added that a number of families have been broken all because of fabricated information and images on social media platforms.
“Yes, some of you might think it’s a joke, but this is happening in our homes day and night. We have seen this. We have to talk about it anyway.”
The minister also spoke about political hooligans who have tried to hijack social media platforms to try and hoodwink people into causing unrest in the country.
“We have also discovered that a number of our learned children now have a tendency of trying to cause unrest in the country using social media platforms. But why can’t we use the gained information for the betterment of the country. We can’t have people of that caliber trying to drag us back always, that s influencing civilians to demonstrate against the government, stealing other people’s goods or destroying what we would have worked for. Let’s stop that and use our knowledge for better things,” he said.
