STATE OF THE MEDIA IN ZAMBIA government has also reacted by trying to enact laws to regulate what it terms the spread of false and defamatory news on social media. Among the laws government intends to put in place are cyber security and cybercrime bill, the e-transaction and e-commerce bill and the data protection bill. Government officials have been generally intolerant to criticism, in many cases stating that the online space is being abused. For instance on 10th January 2018, Lusaka Times reported that a medical doctor was sentenced to three (3) years imprisonment for defamation of the President through a fake Facebook account. In addition, media institutions including their social media accounts are under surveillance and under censorship of information critical of government. This is evident in the case in which on 19th March, 2018, Radio Mano station management was summoned by the police in Kasama over a post made by one of its Fun Club members on the ‘Radio Mano Fun Club’ Facebook page. Independent Broadcasting Authority The Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA) was set up by an Act of Parliament to regulate the broadcast media in Zambia. IBA is therefore a government establishment whose Board of Directors is appointed by the Minister of Information and Broadcasting Services. By its very nature as a government entity, IBA’s independence continues to raise questions. This follows a number of times certain media houses have been shut down for being critical of government. However, the Authority’s role between 1st January, 2018 to 31st March, 2018 did not show many activities, apart from instances of media reports when it was being urged to revoke licenses of irresponsible media houses by members from the ruling PF. Consequently, the PF called on media practitioners to be mentored. Further, the next mention of IBA in the print media was when IBA announced collection of TV levy which was previously the role of ZNBC. It was explained that despite the collection being done by IBA, the TV levy still goes to ZNBC. The contentious issue with the IBA was the introduction of different TV levies for different TV channels other than ZNBC. On 7th March, 2018, government through IBA3 announced that effective 1st April, 2018 the collection of TV 3 th Daily Nation, 7 March, 2018: IBA to start collecting TV Levy 8