WALDERSTON, Manchester — Amid widespread debate over Prime Minister Andrew Holness’s warning that his Government will clamp down on the proliferation of false information shared on social media, a member of the Opposition People’s National Party is accusing him of behaving like a dictator.

“The law is already there to protect you if somebody a tell lie on you out there in the public domain… We see where he is leading this country into a state of dictator,” Councillor Scean Barnswell (People’s National Party, Hayes Division in Clarendon) said during his address at the party’s Walderston divisional conference on Thursday night.

Barnswell said Holness’s remarks suggest a desire to control freedom of expression.

“Him a track those who criticise him on social media. Comrades, it tells you where his interest lies. It is not about securing us, the people of this country; it is about protecting him name and his image out there. I can recall Comrades, leading up to the 2020 [parliamentary] elections, there was a group of bloggers out there bashing the PNP, cursing the PNP. We never say anything, we worked with it,” said Barnswell.

“Now that the very same bloggers who supported it are saying, ‘Your time come’ him vex and decide seh him a go shut down the bloggers because him want to control freedom of expression. Comrades, I am not surprised that he wants to muzzle we. I am not surprised that he wants to take away our constitutional rights,” added Barnswell.

“There are laws that protect somebody if you go out in the public domain and to defame somebody. There are laws that you can carry that person [to court], make them come with the facts to substantiate what you’ve been saying,” he said.

“We [saw] a recent judgment where our general secretary [Dayton Campbell] brought up people before the courts who were defaming him and we saw that the judgment was in his favour,” added Barnswell.

Last Saturday Holness implored young Jamaicans not to engage in spreading misinformation for political gains.

“Recently I became aware of a situation where a young man made a post on social media that borders on being defamatory and probably libellous. The person was tracked and identity discovered. The long and short of it is that the person was put up to doing this by a political organisation. We have been tracking several such cases and, when you dig into it, you discover that young people are behind these accounts. They are being recruited to do this,” Holness charged.

On Friday Holness sought to clarify his comments and announced a website that, he said, can be used to verify information online.

“We are now providing the opportunity, if you see something that you are unsure of, you can post to our website, we can check it and post what the factual situation is,” he said during his presentation at the Youth Summer Employment Programme launch in Trelawny.

He said the State news agency Jamaica Information Service has a website, factcheckjamaica, that can be used to verify information.

“We also want you to help us track fake news and other distortion and misinformation, because if you report it to us we will be able to report it to the platforms on which these are posted. The platforms have an obligation to ensure that their platform is not used for mischief, for misinformation, and other nefarious activities. The objective of the Government is to create a safe online space that you can feel safe in using,” he said.