Is Social Media a threat to Uganda’s National Security

Records show that there has been new waves of violence globally fueled by the social media, and this situation continues unabated, like mass media and its fake news, become a very potent tool in the hand of government, the general public as well as the perpetrators of violence to get across to the public with the social networks now taking a lead. The universality and limited restrictions of the cyber world have made a lot of people embrace it as a means of reaching out to the pubic in various ways. In Uganda just like anywhere most people especially the youths are hooked to various social media networks for 24 hours with the help of availability of internet, cheap handsets that are net enabled and improved literacy levels thanks to UPE and USE.

Social media with its reach, impact, and potential in a globalized world is no longer contested. It is a fascinating phenomenon which presents both challenges and opportunities to citizens, governments and law enforcement agencies across the spectrum.

It has been defined as a set of technologies that “support interpersonal communication and collaboration using Internet-based platforms” (Kane et al. 2014).

Dewing (2012) noted that social media are a wide range of internet-based and mobile services that allow users to participate in online exchanges, contribute user-created content, or join online communities.

Social Media are connection and mass communication tools, characterized by a global diffusion and an ever-growing level of use, considering their handiness and flexibility, as well as their extreme cheapness. Social media platforms have far-reaching social and security implications for this world, governments and several national security agencies such as the military and the police.

Undoubtedly, social media (SM) can be seen as the most widely accepted technological invention in the 21^st century. It promotes social communication norms in developing countries. promotes positive and negative agendas. Globally, terrorists, separatists, political organization, religious groups, individuals and so on are using it to spread their information and ideas.

According to the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD), there is a belief that social media is a threat to national security, particularly threats associated with phishing, social engineering, and web application attacks (Council, CIO 2009).

National security, on the other hand, is the requirements to maintain the survival of the state through the use of economic power, diplomacy, power projection and political power.

It is the security of a nation state, including its citizens, economy, and institutions, which is regarded as a duty of government.

It deals with safeguarding the sovereign, independence and territorial integrity of the state and its citizens. National security is a concept that a government, along with its parliaments, should protect the state and its citizens against all kind of national crises through a variety of power projections, such as political power, diplomacy, economic power, military might, and so on. It implies Specific measures taken to ensure national security that includes using diplomacy to rally allies, using economic power to facilitate cooperation, maintaining effective armed forces, and using intelligence and counterintelligence services to detect and defeat internal and external threats.

Uganda just like any other country globally is faced with a wave of fake news as a result of new media (social media) and this is breaching peace and harmonious co-existence and threatening national security.

People are competing in spreading false news like their life depends on it or on the way to win a gold medal and they are destroying their friends’ reputation, country`s image like they are just tourists in Uganda just passing through and when you attempt to caution them, you get the bashing.

Social media has no rule and regulations, no need for accuracy and transparency, everyone is a journalists, provided you can access net and you have  an enabling gadget with u, its ok, in so doing we have not only killed the traditional journalism and media we have along the way eroded social morals and destroyed our fabrics, and we don’t care provided we have shared and people have commented on what we have posted our day is done.

The seeming free society created by social media is currently being misused at the expense of our national security and we are not bothered at all, uncultured people have turned the platform to, sometimes, a battlefield for contending groups or individuals. This dimension has no doubt, sought to serve as a major drawback for this emerging social platform’. the privacy offered by social media networks has given many users opportunities to hide behind their computers and mobile phone screens to post all sorts of inflammatory words against one another, with no control, our leaders are abused like they are our shamba boys, we have used this new media to abuse and disrespect our leaderships, and those we seem not to agree with socially, politically, culturally, religiously or economically, each one of us is right in his own way and the rest can go hang. Now, many users have deliberately posted silly comments just because they cannot be traced and made to face the consequences of their statements, and those that have somehow been nabbed, have used the line of freedom of information and expression and you can’t punish them beyond caution so that the rest can be deterred.

It is so disheartening to see and read what we post on a daily basis about our fellow citizens, their families, and kin, how we cherish those telling blatant lies on the social media and go scorch free.

Social media is being used by terrorist organizations as tools for ideological radicalization, recruitment, communication and training of its members. terrorist groups are taking advantage of our ever-presence on Social Media to communicate with cyber-crime groups and to coordinate along with the fundraising activities carried out in part or completely on the Internet and in the end compromising national security, but our people save the state none is bothered.

The social media is becoming the source of all societal ills and the hate-filled contents that we keep posting against those we have political or social disagreements with are pitting some groups against others, and we are first developing a “we’’ “they” syndrome that is soon graduating into xenophobia and if we are not careful we may not have the capacity to stop the violence that may come as a result and this may not spare us all, both the perpetrators and the targeted, unfortunately our much cherished peace and security along with us.

Social media has also been weaponized in countries like Libya, Tunisia, Sudan, Egypt, in Venezuela, France (yellow jackets), Hong Kong, as a way of toppling governments. Some elements here in Uganda also are attempting to replicate this to make the ruling governments unpopular and even topple it if possible, so in that way, they are promoting fake news and fanning its spread. They don’t mind about the contents being spread and their repercussions to peace and security of the country. And government is at lookout for these fake news and trying to dispel these rumors that at times are believed by the citizens, the problem is that the government response may not be quick enough, by the time it responds many people will have debated and discussed and even believed it as a right line, so government is instead seen as trying to distort the facts with its line and firefighting, meanwhile the selfish intentions of those that began the fake news will have been achieved.

Yes social media is very important to us all as a tool of communication and keeping in touch and sharing of ideas among ourselves at the cheapest cost possible, but the way we are first misusing this tool may require governments to come up and regulate how we use, communicate and the content we post and this wouldn’t be our wish; because, this left un bated, unregulated and uncensored we may all perish.

And this makes government monitoring, regulation, and control of social media necessary, it’s its cardinal responsibility to guide society and run the country in the best way possible, failure to do this the national security will go to the dogs.

There is, therefore, need for the Government to harness online social networking tools and in equal measure monitor them in the event it threatens national security, monitor the threats of social media technology to Uganda’s national security; the use of social media by the military in preventing, limiting or removing threats to national security has to be heavily invested in; and the current state of Uganda’s national security and how social media makes it worse needs to be analyzed and mitigations put in place.

There is a need also to control the use of social media for security purposes, the government must take some measures to prevent the use of social networks that may cause a security problem in the country.

Additionally, the government should endeavor to suppress speech, public communication, or other information that may be considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, politically incorrect or inconvenient as determined by governments, media outlets, authorities or other groups or institutions for a variety of claimed reasons including national security

The government should further develop the capacity for the online security system to trace the identity of social media users, through wiretapping telephone conversations, using infrared cameras to find individuals in hiding, tracking people with biometric data, creating databases to process and aggregate this information, and so forth.

The government must look for a way to maximize the benefits of social media in achieving her security interest and try to find a way of preventing and curbing cyber-crimes, and misuse through various means like censorship, surveillance, and monitoring of social websites, individuals and groups, etc.

From the foregoing, it is deducible that social media has both positive and negative impacts, particularly as regards national security which must be guarded at all cost.

The need to track and map the content that users publish on social media platforms should be innocent and as straightforward, as they appear. Therefore, the government should be careful not to use that as intimidation to stop constructive criticism.

The government should not hide under surveillance and censorship to clamp down opposition and freedom of speech which is the bedrock of every democratic government.

We can, therefore, decide to live in peace or burn out the country with the help of social media, the choice is ours for we don’t have any other country but Uganda.

For God and the great Pearl.

Paddy D. Kayondo