Special Adviser to President Buhari on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina, says he has suffered in the hands of those that twist information and spread fake news. While speaking at the 5th-anniversary lecture of News Express in Lagos yesterday September 28th, Adesina said that the purveyors of fake news and the consumers of such news have continued to help in its circulation. According to the presidential media aide, those who spread fake news and also the consumers of fake news should be punished by law.
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I have suffered a lot from those who twist information. Our president came back August 19 and we said on 21, he was going to broadcast. We said the broadcast was 8am. Suddenly someone went online and said the broadcast has changed to 7am which had no truth in it at all. And you know, many people believed the change so a lot of people missed the original broadcast. That same day people began to call to ask if there was a public holiday. It turned out that it was Kogi state that declared public holiday and someone went online to say it was national.
“If anything must worry us as media people or citizens of any country, it is fake news. Fake news is an epidemic now. But it is not just the purveyors of fake news that should be sanctioned, even the consumers of it are guilty because statistics have shown that the world consumes fake news more than true news. I saw those statistics online while doing a research
” he said