In recent months the talk of regulating social media has come to the forefront of political and social discourse but is this even feasible at the current scale of these social media networks.

Social media has created a situation where every individual on the planet has the ability to connect to, disseminate and consume content and with that comes various unforeseen consequences as seen by the rise of mass shootings ,murders ,suicides being disseminated through these platforms  and this rightfully has caused many to ponder as to why these platforms cannot seemingly better control the content being displayed on their platforms.

On the flip side of this argument due to the scale of people using these platforms regulating the content on these platforms is a rather difficult task as currently human moderators cherry-pick content that goes on these platforms and in some cases there in entirely no moderation. These companies now have to essentially play catch up to the sheer number of content being posted onto these platforms.

In more recent times social platforms like Facebook and Whatsapp have been used to disseminate information that was considered fake news to the inhabitants of India that led to various deaths. Platforms like 4chan were used to publish the manifesto’s of suicide bombers and mass shooters. Twitter and YouTube were used as nesting grounds for extremist leftist groups and Neo -Nazi’s which after much outcry led to mass boycotting of these platforms to get rid of people that spew any form of hate speech or content that is considered hateful and harmful.Some are of the opinion that its better to let such groups fester in plain sight rather then relegate them to the darker corners of the internet where oversight isn’t a priority.

This also poses the question would the regulation of social media be good in autocratic governments where these platforms are platforms for discourse that would otherwise not be allowed in the public space examples that come to mind are countries like China where any discourse against the communist government can lead to various things like surveillance or in extreme cases imprisonment.

The question then becomes would the regulation of content on these platforms not impact freedom of expression an speech? Also the notion of hate speech is a rather blanket term as what constitutes hate in one country constitutes nothing in another and to add to that who gets to decide what is hate speech and can this not then lead to suppressing any form on content that the masses do not like even if the content differs with the accepted truth based on facts or just opinion .

The unregulated nature of social media helps both good actors and bad actors in society  but one thing is for sure the regulation of social media itself has various implication in various settings and it does not solve all our issues and in many cases it may create new problems.

Standard Bank donated 16 pairs of boots to the football team of the Batubaja Combined School. The school will represent the Zambezi Region in the Copa Coca Cola finals which are scheduled to take place in Rehoboth this weekend. Batubaja is a village 50km outside Katima Mulilo.

What is remarkable about this team is that they not only won the Zambezi regional tournament against 20 other teams, but they did it without boots, prompting Standard Bank to come to their rescue.

The team received their boots today and also had the opportunity to meet the Chief Executive who wished them all the best in the tournament.

Base FM recently attended the launch of the BUY-a-BRICK A MUSIC FEST that is an initiative by Standard Bank to address Namibia’s housing problem that plagues mostly the lower income families of the nation. The event has met with great enthusiasm from all attendees as all at the launch were in agreement that such an initiative was greatly needed in the country. Base FM would like to extend its gratitude to Standard bank and its partners in undertaking an initiative of this nature and implore other corporates to follow in a similar path in order to address the various social and economic ills that plague our Nation.

Thank you for honouring our invitation to the launch of this historic and very important event. (OPENING STATEMENT)

I would also like to thank VMC-6 for joining us as partners in coordinating the A Capella Music Fest
By its design, the A Capella Music Festival serves two purposes The one is to provide supporters of A
Capella and Gospel music a platform to enjoy the music of their choice in a very friendly atmosphere.

It is not very often that Namibia hosts shows of the A Capella kind .We hope that the lineup of artists
on the day will give Namibian music lovers a musical treat of a lifetime.

The second and most important purpose of this A Capella Music Festival is of course to support the Buy-a-Brick Initiative by raising funds to address the housing needs of our low-income communities
living in informal settlements.

We know by now that there are more than half a million of our people live in shacks or other informal
structures and are thus in need of proper housing. We also know that Government alone cannot
address the housing needs and that is where we as citizens must play a complementary role to
government.

This A Capella Music Festival and other initiatives around Buy-a-Brick, afford us as Namibians a chance
to address one of the biggest social challenges in the country.

All the funds generated through the ticket sales for the A Capella Music Festival will be distributed to
the Shack Dwellers Federation of Namibia who are directly responsible for assisting communities in
building houses they can call home.

May I also take this opportunity to thank all the corporates and individuals who have already made
their contributions towards the Buy-a-Brick initiative. Rest assured that you are supporting one of the
worthiest causes in our country.