"We need an African model of regulation".

Latifa AKHARBACH, President of the Réseau des Instances Africaines de Régulation de la Communication (RIARC), and also President of the Haute Autorité de la Communication Audiovisuelle in the Kingdom of Morocco, made this statement during the International Forum on Social Network Management organized by Cameroon's Conseil National de la Communication (CNC) on November 08 and 09, 2023 in Yaoundé. She reiterated the call for a frank and institutionalized dialogue between African media regulators and global digital platforms. There is, she said, a social expectation on the part of our African citizens that today's digital public space can offer them opportunities and enable them to exercise their right to free expression, access to information and knowledge. The aim is to ensure that the media environment in which African citizens evolve gives them access to expression, creativity and innovation, but also protects them from informational disorder and digital risks such as misinformation, pornography and attacks on human dignity. The ambition of African regulators is to work through professional monitoring and the exchange of experience in terms of normative and legal production to provide a framework for this communication. We therefore need to develop an African model for regulating the media space, and the regulation we want to work on is based on the rights of citizens and the general interest of our societies.