Prime News Ghana

Attempts at blocking images of Captain Mahama's lynching making progress

By Justice Kofi Bimpeh
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The Deputy Minister of Communications, George Andah, has said government is making headway in attempts to block gory images of the lynching of Captain Maxwell Adam Mahama on the internet and social media.

Footages of the last moments of the soldier who was mistaken for an armed robber and stoned to death by some residents of Denkyira Oboasi in the Central Region, have been widely circulated on the World Wide Web.

Family of the deceased appealed to the government to block them because it offended their sensitivities.

In an interview on Joy FM, George Andah, revealed addresses of some websites hosting the images have been sent to Google and Facebook to have them blocked or removed.

There is however a challenge because the videos circulating are of  different formats and the encryption of Whatsapp makes it difficult for operators to access the backend of users to delete the images and videos.

“We engage two of our agencies that we believe could help us to address the situation, the Data Protection Commission and the National Commission Authority from the Data Protection point of view the team there have done some great work. Wwe’re able to initiate discussions with Google and Facebook and theses two partners have made significant progress in blocking some of the sites.”

The Deputy Communications Minister asked Ghanaians to  play their part in respecting the family’s wishes.

“The most important thing is that we as citizens should stop spreading these images, we as citizens should not even have these images on our devises unless it has the purpose of aiding the security agencies in that case”.

He added that government is also working with the Telcos to find ways of stopping the transfer of the gruesome images on their data networks.

This approach he noted has its limitations as the application can also use Wi-Fi, which the Telcos may not have control over.