As the rate of internet penetration increases in Uganda, there are several pros and cons that come along with it especially new challenges of pornography proliferation. As telecom companies battle to have the best prices and fastest internet services, the government has an up hill battle to fight cyber crime, online harassment especially on social media and the massive consumption of pornographic content. The Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) and the National Information Technology Authority (NITA) this week launched a joint online reporting platform to crack down on sexual and pornographic material posted on internet sites. This comes at a time when several stories in main stream media have come out to expose some NGOs in recruiting unsuspecting youth through empowering them using their huge sums of money and famous Ugandan artists to make their cause appear legit.
According to the Daily Monitor, Mr James Saaka, the NITA executive director, said that smartphones and Internet cafes are the major promoters of pornography and telecommunication companies, he emphasized that Internet Service Providers (ISPs) cannot be blamed since these services were never introduced with criminal and evil intentions in mind. He expressed is worry that while parents leave their children at home, most of the time the kids are on their mobile phones and the he claims that this is where the children are being recruited into what he termed as funny activities.
There is a big concern that many children are exposed to sex website hosted in the USA, Europe and Asia have huge pornographic networks through the Internet using videos, pictures and other media. Fred Langford, the IWF deputy chief executive officer assured that public that they will work with Internet Service Providers, government agencies and telecommunication companies to crack down on pornographic recruiters. He has also come out to request the public to alert them about the abusive content and they will use their networks worldwide to investigate where it has been hosted and government shall follow up and ensure that the content is banned from the internet.
Image Credit: Campusghanta.com
