{"id":385213,"date":"2020-03-27T07:10:01","date_gmt":"2020-03-27T05:10:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=385213"},"modified":"2020-03-27T07:39:17","modified_gmt":"2020-03-27T05:39:17","slug":"new-website-rules-for-south-africa-during-the-coronavirus-outbreak","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/internet\/385213\/new-website-rules-for-south-africa-during-the-coronavirus-outbreak\/","title":{"rendered":"New website rules for South Africa during the coronavirus outbreak"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Communications Minister Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams has approved new requirements for South African ISPs and website owners as part of the government\u2019s plan to fight the spread of the Covid-19 coronavirus.<\/p>\n<p>In a\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.gpwonline.co.za\/Gazettes\/Gazettes\/43164_26-3_Telecommunications.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>government gazette [PDF Link]<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0dated 26 March 2020, the Department of Communications detailed interventions around the \u201cdissemination of information\u201d in the country.<\/p>\n<p>The purpose of the new directions is to facilitate the availability and use of digital technologies to combat the spread of Covid-19 in South Africa.<\/p>\n<p>The directions include guidelines aimed at ensuring the smooth operations of telecoms networks and disseminating COVID-19 information to citizens.<\/p>\n<p>The directions include a section which deals solely with the dissemination of information. The new rules include:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Broadcasting Licensees are required to receive and disseminate public information related to the national effort to combat the spread of COVID-19.<\/li>\n<li>All Licensees with access to radio frequency spectrum are required to make available their platforms for the streaming of public announcements to their subscribers.<\/li>\n<li>Electronic Communications Services Licensees, OTTs and ISPs must remove fake news related to COVID-19 from their platforms immediately after it is identified as such.<\/li>\n<li>All Internet sites operating within .zaDNA top level domain name must have a landing page with a visible link to www.sacoronavirus.co.za.<\/li>\n<li>Licensees must provide zero-rated access to local educational content websites.<\/li>\n<li>Audio visual services, especially the broadcasting services licensees, must increase their educational programmes to support awareness of COVID-19.<\/li>\n<li>Licensees with access to high-demand spectrum must make available connectivity to 104 district virtual classroom platforms with minimum speeds of 10Mbps to support virtual teaching during the COVID-19 national disaster.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>These regulations may catch many .za website owners off guard, as many domains do not have a website hosted on the domain.<\/p>\n<p>ISPs may also face challenges to put measures in place to enable the removal of fake news from their platforms.<\/p>\n<p><em>This article originally appeared on <a href=\"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/internet\/344953-new-rules-for-all-co-za-websites-and-isps-during-coronavirus-outbreak.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>MyBroadband.<\/strong><\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Read: <a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/internet\/384405\/workers-to-be-exempted-from-lockdown-to-keep-south-africas-phone-and-internet-connections-running\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Workers to be exempted from lockdown to keep South Africa\u2019s phone and internet connections running<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Communications Minister Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams has approved new requirements for South African ISPs and website owners as part of the government\u2019s plan to fight the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":31,"featured_media":344048,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9882],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-385213","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-internet","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385213","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/31"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=385213"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385213\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":385251,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385213\/revisions\/385251"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/344048"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=385213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=385213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=385213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}