President John Dramani Mahama has said he is often unaware of the specific circumstances behind arrests linked to social media posts, particularly on TikTok, admitting that he sometimes learns of such cases through media reports rather than official channels.
Speaking on the growing global concern over regulating that platform, President Mahama noted that Ghana is not alone in grappling with how to manage content shared on TikTok.
“There’s a new media called Tik Tok and it’s not only Ghana where people are wondering what to do to regulate TikTok because in all countries all over the world they are wondering what to do to make sure that we have information integrity even with TikTok,” he said on the sidelines of the 81st UN General Assembly.
The President described how easily content spreads on the platform, noting that anyone with a phone can record and share opinions instantly, a trend he said Ghanaians have particularly embraced.
“Anybody who has a phone just puts it in front of him and just says whatever he likes and once they put it out it has an algorithm that shares it. And as usual, Ghanaians, we also have taken it to a new level,” he said.
However, President Mahama expressed unease about being informed after the fact when citizens are arrested over TikTok content, saying the justification for some arrests does not always match the severity of the response.
“A lot of these arrests I don’t even know about them. I also hear them on the media. Somebody has been tracked and arrested and all that and sometimes it worries me because sometimes the reason for which the person has been arrested, really, I mean they say he’s insulted me and you look at the insult and it can’t be quoted for the person to be arrested,” he said.
He, however, cautioned that some of threats against leaders are too dangerous to ignore despite being classified as free expression.
“If you take a TikTok and threaten Trump and say that you are coming after him and you are planning to come to the White House and assassinate him, you think you will not be swept off your feet? But in Ghana you can say it and when you arrest somebody they say oh no, you are trampling on free expression,” he said.
This reaction may perhaps be connected with the recent arrest of one Salomey Baffoh Awiti by the police over her relationship with Ghana Jollof, a blogger who has thrown invectives at the First Lady and the President.