Sharing Or Forwarding Another Person’s Post On Social Media Can Land You In Trouble

Social media is a world of its own. Research has shown that between Facebook, Twitter, Google+, WhatsApp and LinkedIn, as at 2017, there are over 2 billion users and growing. WhatsApp, created in 2009, is used by over 1.2 billion people, across 109 countries for texts, posts, pictures, videos and calls. There are 42 billion messages sent everyday through WhatsApp.

There are over 1 billion WhatsApp groups. An average WhatsApp user sends more than 1000 messages per month during an average of 30-minute engagement/day through an average of 20 sessions/day. Statistics related to Facebook is more mind-numbing.

Social media platforms tend to be quite irritating sometimes. They are proven to be a potential tool to spread rumours and fake news among a large number of users. Many social media users, who have been believing that the disclaimer ‘Retweets/Shares does not mean endorsement’ will shield them from any prosecution for the posts they share. That is a figment of their imagination.

Recently, the Madras High Court, India, took a bold step by rejecting the anticipatory bail of a journalist-turned-party leader for his allegedly derogatory Facebook post on women journalists. The post made derogatory remarks about women journalists, even suggesting that women journalists in Tamil Nadu sleep with “top bosses”. Among some key observations made by the Madras High Court, the most notable one reads as follows: “Forwarding a message is equal to accepting the message and endorsing the message.”

“Words are more powerful than acts, when a celebrity-like person forwards messages like this, the common public will start believe it that this type of things are going on. This sends a wrong message to the society at a time when we are talking about women empowerment. After seeing these forwarded words from a person who is popular and has lot of connections with media people for long, the public will look at every working women with a suspicious eye because Instead of wiping out the wrong impression about working women among the public these words create fear and anxiety among people who want to pursue a career.” the court said, as quoted by Live Law.

Shekher, an actor-turned-politician, has claimed that he shared the message without carefully reading the content. The court also said abusing women is a violation of rights.

“There cannot be any harsher words than this which portraits all working women coming up in life are sacrificing their chastity. The future of such working women is at stake. Instead of wiping out the wrong impression about working women among the public, these words create fear and anxiety among people who want to pursue a career,” the court said, as quoted by Live Law.

The key observations by the Madras High Court on Social Media Sharing and Forwarding are:

1. What is said is important, but who has said it is very important in a society.
2. When a celebrity-like person forwards messages like this, the common public will believe that this type of things are going on.
3. Words from people who are in public life should bring peace and harmony, not incite hatred and disharmony.
4. Talking is different from typing. Typing becomes a document, one cannot go back saying that ‘I have not done it.’

The Madras High Court judgment only restated the age-long position of the law that re-publication of defamatory content of the same, or dissemination by any other means makes the disseminator equally liable for defamation. The judgment only restates the law more strongly, in the context of social media, and serves as a timely warning to people. With the use of social media and technology, it has become so easy to disseminate content in e-form and more importantly, the sheer ease of it, leads most people to indiscriminately spread messages on social media platforms, without checking the content.

Can the position be different if similar issue were to come before Nigerian court?

The answer is no. An offence like this falls under not just the Cyber Crime (Prohibition, Prevention Etc) Act, 2015, but under some provisions of other criminal legislations like Criminal and Penal Codes, which do not permit spreading or carrying forward content that is dirty, hateful, perverse, obscene and incorrect. The Cyber Crimes Act provides as follows:

24. Any person who knowingly or intentionally sends a message or other matter by means of computer systems or network that –

    (b) he knows to be false, for the purpose of causing annoyance, inconvenience danger, obstruction, insult, injury, criminal intimidation, enmity, hatred, ill will or needless anxiety to another or causes such a message to be sent:

commits an offence under this Act and shall be liable on conviction to a fine of not more than N7,000,000.00 or imprisonment for a term of not more than 3 years or to both such fine and imprisonment.

(underlined for emphasis)

Ignorance of law is no excuse. You cannot plead that you didn’t know the law. You have to exercise caution on sharing or forwarding any kind of content which has defamatory content, carnal interests, online obscenity, abuse of women and children and so on. Act with care, truth and responsibility.

In law there is no difference between an author/Creator and a person forwarding the same content, simply because it is the same tool that is carrying or spreading the information. Readers who first read the original author and forward the same content belong to the same class legally as their action only increases the readership of the original piece of content with a new group of readers. You can delete your comment online but you cannot erase the content forever. The need of the hour is to exercise balance and responsibility while sharing content on social media and at the same time protecting our fundamental right to free speech,

The following points should be considered before sharing on social media:

1. Never be in a hurry to share or forward on social media.
2. Any forward, retweeting or sharing on social media will now have legal consequences. Always be mindful of this.
3. Keep in mind that the Cyber Crime (Prohibition, Prevention Etc) Act, 2015, covers ALL your online activities in the cyber sphere. Just because you are sharing or forwarding online does not make you less immune from the law or less accountable.
4. Exercise caution and care before you share on social media.
5. We need to basically do what we want others to do for us in the social circles we move in – if some content can cause harm or hurt another, or if it can be prejudicial to their interest, avoid sharing or forwarding such content.

TheNigeriaLawyer Editorial