The federal government on Tuesday announced increment in fine for hate speech from N500,000 Naira to N5m.
This was made known by the minister of culture and information, Lai Mohammed, at the unveiling of the new amendment to the sixth Edition of the Broadcasting Code held at Lagos on Tuesday.
In a statement circulated via the ministry’s twitter handle on Tuesday, Mohammed said one of the reviewed code is: “The provision raising the fine for hate speech from 500,000 Naira to 5 million Naira.”
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Disclosing some other provisions of the reviewed broadcasting code, Mohammed said the law regulating web broadcasting would guard against negative foreign broadcast that can jeopardise the country’s security and national unity.
“The law on registration of Web Broadcasting grants the country the opportunity to regulate negative foreign broadcasts that can harm us as a nation. Such harms could be in the area of security, protection for minors, protection of human dignity, economic fraud, privacy etc, he said.
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He added that TV stations would devote airtime for national emergencies, and that Sub-licensing and rights sharing in the reviewed code will help local operators to gain traction.
“The provisions on responsibility of broadcast stations to devote airtime to national emergencies: This provision obviously mandates terrestrial and Pay TV channels to make their services available to Nigerians at time of national emergencies
“Sub-licensing and Rights sharing create opportunities for local operators to also gain traction and raise revenue for their services”, Mohammed said.
