The African media has a mandate to educate the public on the dangers and opportunities that lie in the internet space. Dawit Bekele, the regional bureau director for Africa at Internet Society said.
Speaking at the sidelines of the recently concluded African Domain Name forum in Nairobi, Bekele praised the Kenyan media for being more outspoken about online insecurities as compared to other countries in the continent.
"It is important we educate our society [about the internet]. I must say we are not very good in Africa in doing that," Bekele said. "When technology comes sometimes we adopt it without really knowing exactly what comes with it."
"It is important to have such discussions, and the media has a big role to play," he added. "I have to admire the Kenyan media because it is quite [tech] savvy, on these kind of issues of importance."
Bekele urged governments and private organisations to join hands in fighting online insecurity which is on the rise globally and has caught Africa flat footed over the years.
He said that security is not something that can be achieved by one organisation. "That is true even offline. You lock your door even when you have police around," Bekele noted underlining the importance of citizen participation.
"It is really important to have an internet we trust," Bekele added. "Up until now in Africa the internet has been considered as a very marginal medium that is used by a few people.
Bekele said that if African countries are to nurture the internet economy, then building trust through cyber-security should be in the forefront of governments and private businesses.
According to an ITU (International Telecommunications Union) report released in May, only 20,7% of Africans are using the internet.
Internetworldstats.com states that as of the end of June 2014, Kenya had over 21 million internet users.
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