A GLIMPSE INTO SOCIAL MEDIA MONETIZATION
On the 22nd November 2024, the Parliament of Zambia agreed on welcoming laws that allow for the monetisation of social media, paving way for more income avenues after the ICT sectors contribution of only 2.6% to the country’s GDP in 2023. As a step towards materialising this reform, the Zambian government has been in the process of repealing and replacing the Independent Broadcasting Authority 2002 (IBA Act) which partially governs social media activity.
Their primary drive for this decision is to provide for content creators and influencers to earn some income as well as for them to share knowledge with each other. Quoting the UPND Minister of Technology and Science, Romeo Kang’ombe, this is the step necessary to unlock innovation and entrepreneurship and encouraging the “potential to create millionaires.”
However, whilst the country embraces this new steam of income as a contributing factor to national economic growth in an era where global digitalisation is widely recognised, it is imperative to remember that new parliament propositions often necessitate regulatory convergence.
The Minister of Information and Media assured the public that the proposed reforms to the laws governing social media aim to create a conducive environment for monetisation and digital innovation.
However, in order to do so it is important for the law makers to ensure the public understand all legal angles this change impacts. A few recommendations would encompass taking the following guidelines into account:
- Bringing national legislation in line with international standards. A look at the UK would give example to a nation that is constantly reforming its laws to accommodate potential social dangers. The Online Safety Act 2023 introduced a new set of laws that protects children online. The Act also protects adult users, ensuring that major platforms will need to be more transparent about which kinds of potentially harmful content they allow, and give people more control over the types of content they want to see. Additionally, the Act introduced new criminal offences, which include encouraging or assisting serious self-harm, cyberflashing, sending false information intended to cause non-trivial harm, threatening communications, intimate image abuse, epilepsy trolling and more. The Zambian legislators would need to enact an all-encompassing legislation similar to that of the UK.
- Introducing law or practice guidelines that inform content creators or influencers on protecting their legal rights, understanding what intellectual property they own
(such as their content uploaded, their name, images and likeness), maintaining reputation, when best to pursue litigation, respecting the rights of other creators, and complying with local social media and broadcasting laws. The government introducing practice guidelines to supplement their reformed law would cater to: - Encouraging one to form a legal entity once he or she monetises their content so as to protect their personal assets from business related claims
- The importance of contracts for endorsements, affiliate marketing etcetera stating what the content creator is expected to provide and how much they are to be compensated in return, their rights and the termination procedures available to them
- Developing and adopting a Code of Practice or Guidelines which deal with appropriate communication online and gives information about what should happen when someone breaks the law
- Educating the layman on possible repercussions where avoiding brand disparagement, infringement, plagiarism and other social media ‘offences’ occur.
Overall monetization of social media will be advantageous as it will allow for vloggers, artists, writers, gamers, media houses and many more to earn revenue while enabling the government to collect taxes through this. Furthermore, it will address the high levels of unemployment in the country as more job opportunities will be created for young people through their content.
This is a good step towards modernising the employment sector. However, government should strive to enact legislation which clearly sets out the means in which revenue can be generated on social media, how this monetization should work (be it subscriptions, ad revenues) and basic guidelines on cyber legalities to educate the creators.
