Nigeria Government on Friday suspended twitter’s operations after the social media giant deleted a tweet of Nigerian President Muhammadu Bihari by giving the excuse of violating its rules. The Government move came after a tweet related to the 1967-70 Civil war was deleted by Twitter. But officially the Government said it suspends the account due to persistent use of the platform for activities that are capable of undermining Nigeria’s Corporate Existence. Also, the government said that Twitter is collaborating with OTT platforms whose regulations are not complying with the Company’s IT Policies.
In 2019 Nigeria announced that it would lay down the regulations on Social Media to fight Misinformation and Fake News, but this act has had an impact on the Freedom of Expression and Speech. Other countries like China and Turkey have also suspended twitter under the reason of their Nation’s interests and Security. Nigeria is the most populous country in African Region and this suspension will account for the huge loss of twitter’s revenue.
Twitter is facing concern due to its policy of deleting and suspending accounts by giving the reason for violation of its rules. Recently they also removed the Blue Badge from the account of the Vice President of India. Also, they locked the account of Indian Home Minister Amit Shah and the Jammu Kashmir Lt. Governor. Twitter even didn’t give any warning or alert before performing such an action. The controversial actions resulted in a rise of rivalry between Social Media (Twitter) and the government of the countries.