25 October 2022; MEMO: Days after accusing the opposition of forming "electronic bots" to spread chaos and destabilise the country, the Tunisian Ministry of Information and Communication Technologies has had its Twitter account closed for violating publishing laws. Several politicians and activists have responded to the measure, Al-Quds Al-Arabi has reported.
Under the heading "State Technological Scandal", the head of Al-Majd Party, Abdel Wahab Hani wrote: "Twitter closes the account of the Ministry of Information and Communication Technologies for electronic fraud against the President of the Republic and the Tunisian people, for 'spreading' lies and 'abusing' the President… that no sane person would believe, whether human or virtual, technological or electronic." The account was closed because of the failure to respect laws and violating the right to free and safe participation for all users, he added.
Hani suggested that, in any self-respecting country, Nizar Ben Neji must now be called the "Minister of Electronic Deception and be investigated for violating constitutional freedoms and conspiring to defame the state at home and abroad."
The decision to close the page comes days after the ministry called on Tunisians to confront what it called "a group of individuals hidden behind false accounts who have used social media networks to create electronic armies through accounts and pages that depend on human intelligence and artificial intelligence algorithms to incite public opinion and negatively affect national stability."
