"Part 5 of the Public Order Act carries an offence under Section 32.(1) which says: "Any person who publishes any false statement, rumour or report which is likely to cause fear or alarm, to the public or to disturb the public peace shall be guilty of an offense" and the punishment for the offense is a fine and/or jail for twelve months
"This means that if any person allegedly forwarded false information likely to cause fear and disturb public peace, on to a Whatsapp Group, then automatically, the Administrator(s) of that group is indirectly guilty of an offense because it was him/her whom it was who provided the means by which the personn caused the false information to be delivered to the telephones of other members of that Whatsapp group.
"This is not rocket science. It is the Law of Sierra Leone, plain and simple. Part 5 of the Public Order Act of 1965 adequately covers crimes committed on the Internet including via Emails and on Whatsapp or Facebook groups. Section 37 of that Act, actually draws in Administrators of social media groups as being directly or indirectly culpable for providing the means through which their members dumped false matter, defamatory matter or seditious matter. The Government is therefore quite correct to warn Whatsapp administrators to control the discussions .
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