By Kingsley I. Ilechukwu, Correspondent Lagos
The Chief Web Advocate at the World Wide Web Foundation, Nnenna Nwakanma, has advised Nigerians, especially the youths, to focus on creating valuable contents they will not regret in 20 to 50 years, whenever they are online.
She said this as part of the special address to the 2021 Nigeria DigitalSENSE Africa Forum on Internet Governance for Development (IG4D), held at the Golden Tulip Hotels Essential, International Airport Road, Lagos hosted by an award-winning ITREALMS Media under its DigitalSENSE Africa Forum series, an At-Large Structure (ALS) at the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) as part of efforts for shaping the future of the Internet.
Nwakanma, who dwelt on developments on digital cooperation and effects on growing demography on African and Nigeria perspective, said “Digital Cooperation is a global initiative to get all stakeholders to collaborate on key issues,” defined being a digital citizenship as something critical.
”In the digital world, we judge you by content. We said that content is king. So, if you are online and you are making a mess of it, you are making a mess of your own self and of your own future,” she declared.
She pointed out that she strongly believed that if not for the Internet, “I would not have been who I am today,” stressing that she had made great use of the Internet by using it to build a brand and now its building her brand.
“Today, I am globally known, globally solicited. Not because I am a Nigerian, but because I have been someone who has used the Internet to grow myself, grow others and bring value,” she asserted.
Nwakanma urged the youths to think of themselves, as creators of value, content, growth, bring empowerment, and creators of solutions, insisting that they should not think of themselves as a source of problem or thinking that all their problems were extraordinary.
“There is no problem in Nigeria that a citizen has that is extra-ordinary. All other citizens have the same problems,” she said and advised that focused thinking should be on providing solutions through being responsible for what we produce online.
“You may think it’s a joke, but I have seen people who put up something online and later to say ‘o, I was not really thinking of it’” she warned, maintaining that “If you are not thinking of it, and if you really don’t mean it, please just do not put it online, because we are taking you seriously and you may go to jail for something you think ‘o, it wasn’t really what I meant to.’”
On uploads on the internet, she advised: “if you really don’t mean to say it, please don’t say it or share it…
“So, before you click ‘send’, please verify that what you are writing now will still be valid in 50 years; in 20 years when you become bigger or become that person that you want to be, because we don’t forget, we don’t forgive, we don’t want explanations, we don’t accept excuses,”.
