MANDEVILLE, Manchester — Minister of Justice Delroy Chuck says democracy is being abused by misinformation being spread on social media, particularly by bloggers who are paid “for the nastiness” on their blogs.

Chuck said democracy is the clash and competition of ideas and opinions while noting that nothing is wrong with the conflict of views.

“We don’t highlight the good things in Jamaica. We highlight all the negatives. One thing that Jamaica can be extremely proud of is that our democracy is alive and well. Every single Jamaican can go out in the square and curse the prime minister and the minister, and be as rude and abusive as they want to be. Unless they start cursing bad words, they can do it,” he said on Thursday night.

“They can write letters to the press, they can go on the radio and abuse anyone; and the truth of the matter, they have that right under our democracy,” he added.

Chuck, while addressing the Justices of the Peace Association, St Elizabeth Chapter’s inaugural banquet awards at the Tropics View Hotel in Mandeville, insisted that the country’s democracy is being undermined.

“The reason is we have social media that is highlighting misinformation. They have malicious bloggers who use every possible abuse of the prime minister, the ministers, persons in the society. And why do they do it? Do you know they make money to do so?” he asked his audience consisting of mostly middle-aged people and seniors.

“When they [bloggers] can get a few thousands of persons to tune into them, YouTube pays them, so you have a situation now where the democracy is at work, but they go on blogs and speak the most salacious, negative and abusive misinformation undermining the integrity of our country,” said Chuck.

He blasted people who subscribe to bloggers who are focused on creating mischief and spreading misinformation.

“The sad thing is that you have people across the world and in Jamaica listening to them. They tune into them and they [bloggers] get paid for all the nastiness that they bring across on their blogs,” he said.

“Justices of Peace, you must be very careful about what people spread. There is so much misinformation that passes around. I was sitting at Cabinet on Monday and I got this WhatsApp ‘NWC is now on strike, collect water. Make sure you have water in your tanks’. And I said to my Cabinet colleagues: ‘How we don’t know about this?’ And they said no, [NWC was] at the Ministry of Labour discussing how to deal with the matter. But across Jamaica you heard that the water workers were on strike,” added Chuck.

He is urging people to verify information before spreading it on social media.

“What you find, unfortunately, as you may have heard is what Mark Twain said, ‘A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes.’ Do not pass around information unless you can verify… Be sceptical about what you hear, see on WhatsApp and also social media,” said Chuck.