I couldn’t miss scrolling past “Facebook Suspended” or “Facebook Banned” images in my news feed since yesterday morning. It’s truly a viral news. And I’ve seen that the majority have been vocal against it. The Hon. PKJ also wrote about it, sharing his concerns and reminding the cabinet on the principles of democracy and why we ought to protect it.

As an ordinary citizen from the beautiful Langalanga lagoon, I also have few concerns. But I want to make it clear that I have no intentions to bad mouth anyone, in fact I respect the ruling government’s decision and wrote to only express my views.

Three things that concerns me are:

Suspend Facebook vs Keeping the economy afloat
Public Scrutiny vs Government Progress
National Security vs Cyber security

First, I must stress that we are in difficult times. COVID-19 is hitting us hard at almost all spheres of our economy and not only the health sector. It cripples finances to the core; and small to medium size businesses trying to cut costs in order to remain in business. A classic example, is the mass laying off of Flysolomons employees.

This situation reminds me of this formula GDP = C + I + G + (X – M). This formula is not new at all, as a matter of fact, it is very well known to anyone studying Economics. Basically, it is used to calculate GDP of any country. Any Economist can simply look at all the variables and can tell the general state of the economy.

Now, let’s take disposal income(dC) as an example. A reduction implies lower purchasing power meaning disposal income is also decreasing and therefore GDP.

This is why the ESP is very very important (not to abuse). It is used to stimulate the economy (eg. more X) by increasing the respective variables such as private C(consumption), gross Investment(I), Government Spending and (X-M) Export less Import.

So why is suspending Facebook not a good idea?

Businesses thrive on it. It’s vital for cost reduction, advertising and connectivity. Facebook provides lots of useful tools for businesses. For example, advertising. For a typical Business Page here is the cost:

Zero Fee to Create Page/Group/Room
Free to post unlimited listings
Free to use commenting/messaging tools
Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp integration is key to success online
Topup Data (Government Tax)
Sponsored Ads starts at 5USD

Suspending Facebook only means a reduction in tax revenue for SIG. It means businesses utilizing Facebook tools to convert leads reduces. It means businesses revenues will decrease as well. Consumers’ options to pay also limited. An example of affected businesses will be tourism sector, Agriculture, Electronic Repairs, ICT Startups, Freelancers, Restautants, etc.

So if we weigh the pros and cons, who is losing here?

Secondly, public scrutiny is good for progress. What I meant is that, we are a democratic country. Our constitution is build on top of this pillar.

Everyone has the freedom to speak when they felt that something not right (or concerns them). This is good for authorities to rethink and progress. (Take negativity and turn them into positive energy). The Constitution is quiete clear on this and that the ruling Government should uphold.

The sad scenario?

Well, I have been following some of the Facebook pages and groups such as Islandsun, Solomon Star, SBM, SB Herald, TSI, YTTF, SIBC, Solomon Times; I noticed the goods and bads. I sometimes stumbled on issues of cyberbullying and discrimination against our own people. More so, Criticism on public funds, leadership, national issues, and so forth.

Often times it hurts, and perhaps very hard to swallow the negativities. I must say that Facebook commentary sections are filled with comments from a vast pool of individuals. Issues are sometimes not properly analysed and based on emotions which reflects the intellectual capacity of some commentators.

But should the ruling Govt suspend Facebook as a result of this?

Well, personally I don’t think voicing concerns against the ruling government is the issue here. I will be surprised if they suspend Facebook for that reason. Why? Because it makes the Government looks “bad” in the face of every other democratic countries; and I still hold the view that such action should be for bigger reasons, perhaps for market control, censorship, innovation, etc.

Finally, it seems that we focus more on the term “national security” but fail to tackle the fundamentals. In this era, information is power. It is an asset that is so valuable just like money in today’s economy. For example, classified government data, trade secrets, medical records, etc.

What I don’t understand is that we suspending Facebook before coming up with regulations/strategies around the issues of cybersecurity such as cyber bullying, privacy, insider threat, information security, social media, etc.

I expected to see the ruling Government announced this instead as top priorities:

Information Security Manual(ISM)
CERT and CSIRTS for Solomon Islands
Cybersecurity Strategies, Regulations, Policies, etc.

Leaked Documents? Where did it came from? By who?

Now, from the chain of leak documents in the media over the past weeks, is nothing to do with the public. It is somewhat from an insider. In cybersecurity terminology, we called it an insider threat. An internal frustrated officer turning against its employer by leaking information.

Therefore, the government has a lot of work to do in order to tackle the challenges of information security; especially data at rest, data in motion and data in use.

Furthermore, I can say insider threat is a hard one to mitigate, therefore, the recruitment process must cater for this as stipulated in any security strategies/policies for that matter.

In summary, I felt that it’s only proper to first address issues from the inside before taking the action to suspend Facebook from the outside. Deal with cybersecurity/information security fundamentals first, if national security concerns you.