"Social media wasn’t around in 2004" - minister goofs

The Minister for Tourism, Arts and Culture,

The minister at a press encounter organised by the Ministry of Information at its conference room in Accra discussed her achievements under the Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture in her first year in office.

But, answering questions from the press, she committed a big goof – which shows her level of understanding of the Internet.

She was addressing a research by Richard Boateng, the President for Film Directors Guild of Ghana (FDDG), on the film industry when she claimed that "social media wasn’t around in 2004".

This clearly shows that Catherine Afeku had no idea or probably didn’t do any better research about social media before taking in charge of her office.

Social media has been in existence since the 90s.

SixDegrees.com was known as the first social media network created in the year 1997.

Even the most popular social networking websites like Yahoo!, Myspace, Hi5, LinkedIn, et al have been were created before 2004.

Palpably, the minister’s idea about social media or the internet, in general, is only limited to Facebook, Twitter and Instagram – the most recent social media networks.

So Madam Catherine Afeku, get your facts right! The ‘fons et origo’ of social media is far deeper than you might envisage.