Tinubu govt won’t restrict freedom of expression – FG

Government policy should not be to suppress free speech; rather, it should be to encourage constructive dialogue, according to Mohammed Idris, Minister of Information and National Orientation.

In a courtesy call to his office on October 12, 2023, the Minister made the statement. The team from Google West Africa was there.

In addition to saying that freedom carries a great deal of responsibility and shouldn’t be used as a pretext to allow chaos to spread throughout the nation, the Minister expressed her belief that it is crucial to have a forum where people can freely express themselves.

Idris revealed that in order to support everyone’s right to free speech and access to information, the federal government would persist in advancing this principle.

“It is critical that those who are responsible for disseminating this information or developing the platforms are also very conscious of the fact that it can easily be used against the people it is meant to serve,” he said in his statement.

Without freedom of expression, democracy cannot exist, so we will work with Google to promote the free exchange of information, he declared.

In order to ensure that the problem of fake news disappears, he praised Google for the excellent work they were doing and declared that the Ministry would keep interacting with them and other companies in industry.

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Over the past three years, Google has trained over 3,500 journalists to use a variety of tools for news verification, including digital tools for managing misinformation, according to Mr. Olumide Balogun, the leader of the Google West Africa delegation.

With the “Google Innovation Challenge,” our Google News integration team assists news organisations worldwide, including those in Nigeria, in innovating and introducing new innovations to the news industry. One of the innovations we funded was an artificial intelligence tool called “full fact,” which aids in fact-checking.

By providing staff with online skills training, the Google team promised to support the Ministry.