Govt Moves to Regulate Content Creation

By Kudzaishe Chimonera

Government says it is working on new measures to regulate content creation while prioritising human capital development and the production of local content in line with national media policy.

Speaking during a post-Cabinet briefing, Minister of Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services Dr. Zhemu Soda said the initiative is being led through the Ministry of Information.

“Currently through the Ministry of Information we are working on a project by which human capital development will be prioritised especially to ensure that we have content that is being created especially local content in line with our media policy, a requirement,” he said.

Soda noted that resources have already been set aside to support content creation, describing the initiative as an ongoing project, while stressing the importance of responsible journalism.

“We have set aside some resources for content creation like I indicated that it’s a project that we are working on but what we are emphasizing is the issue of responsible journalism,” he said.

He expressed concern over the ease with which individuals can now create and distribute content, warning of the risks of misinformation.

“We are aware that these days everyone with an iPhone is a journalist and you can create content immediately and dispatch it and you can inform or you can misinform the public by the content that you would have generated,” he said.

To address this, Soda said the ministry is working with stakeholders to develop regulations to manage content creation, particularly in light of emerging technologies.

“So to curb that, just recently last week the ministry together with our stakeholders were in Kadoma where we were having a workshop to come up with some regulations as to how we should be able to regulate content creation, now with the threat of Artificial Intelligence and like I just indicated that everyone with an iPhone can generate that content and spread it,” he said.

He added that consultations are ongoing, with input being sought from industry professionals, including the possibility of co-regulation.

“We are coming up with some regulations to ensure that our people will not be misinformed and we were soliciting for the views of the professionals from the industry as to how we can go about regulating and the other thought that we had was that of co-regulating,” he said.