Zanu-PF resolves to hit back at cyber threats

Source: Zanu-PF resolves to hit back at cyber threats | The Herald December 20, 2016

Herald Reporter
Zanu-PF should devise mechanisms to fight cyber threats that have been used by opposition parties and civic society organisations to destablise the country.

In a Central Committee report to the 16th Annual National People’s Conference that was held in Masvingo last week, Zanu-PF’s Information and Publicity Department said the media landscape was fast changing due to the use of social media and other electronic communication plat- forms.

“The party should design and explore pragmatic strategies to manage communication on the social media, without frustrating the country’s development efforts,” read the report.

“There is need to remain proactive and effectively utilise the platform for the benefit of the party, its members and the country at large.”

The report said Zanu-PF had for some time been advocating for the use of technology-based communication platforms including the social media.

It said all the other political parties were using social media to gain mileage while the revolutionary party also used its website, Facebook, WhatsApp and Twitter to effectively communicate its own policies and programmes.

“There are, however, some concerns about the use of social media, at a time when political parties are preparing for the 2018 elections.

“This phenomenon has been worsened by people who want to create ‘chaos’ and destablise the country through abuse of the platform, whereby it is being used to attack the party and its leadership and inciting peace-loving Zimbabweans to demonstrate against the Government.

“The party should, therefore, design robust safeguards against cyber-threats, where hackers electronically break into systems and emails to get data that they will use for other purposes,” reads the report.

The department also raised concern with the abuse of national symbols such as the National Flag, which the opposition and its appendages used to portray themselves as patriots.

“The overall worldwide technological environment is fast changing and it is, therefore, imperative that the party quickly adapts to these changing con- ditions.

“The use of social media has been a major development during the review period. Unfortunately, this has been used by civic groups and the opposition to denigrate the party and Government efforts to recover the economy for the benefit of Zimbabweans.

“The party should, therefore, design appropriate strategies to fight cyber threats that compromise data security,” said the department headed by Politburo member Cde Simon Khaya Moyo.