Representatives of the UAE National Council suggested tightening control over content published on social networks.
On Tuesday, the UAE Federal National Council discussed the behavior of influence agents in the media space. In particular, members of the council noted that the government should more closely monitor agents of influence on social networks. The content that they post should be consistent with government-promoted values.
Council members expressed their concern about the lack of control over the advertising of goods and services and the fact that most influence agents do not indicate whether a post is a paid advertisement or not.
The new media regulation system, initiated by the National Media Council on February 28 this year, makes mandatory the indication of paid content. Under the new system, from now on, social media agents and bloggers are required to obtain a license by the end of June 2018. Failure to comply with this requirement will result in a fine of up to AED 5,000, an offender may be given an oral or official warning, and his website and / or account may be blocked.
However, according to the representative of the Council from Ras al-Khaimah Naam Al Sharhan, the new rules are not enough.
"Influence agents have not yet fully understood what they should note in the post, whether it is paid or not. What if a person starts using face cream that someone advertised, and then irritation appears on his skin? In addition, the government should adopt a law that controls the activities of influencers in general, and not just the issue regarding their advertising activities, "the representative of the Council emphasized.
"On Instagram, people post a lot of obscene things that children can see. We all don’t like it when they advertise all sorts of nonsense, for example, when a fashion blogger takes pictures of herself while lying on the bed. Such recklessness erases the values that grandparents conveyed to us "These people call themselves agents of influence, but what exactly do they influence in this way?" - continued Naama in her speech.
According to her, the National Media Council should adopt a strategy to prevent the negative impact of social networks.
