9 ms·

Twitter Ban in Nigeria

63 points by kaladin_1 5y ago

throwkeep 5y ago
Smart. Honestly, every country should ban Twitter and Facebook. They are a net negative; this century's version of tobacco companies. Arguably worse, as they are a cancer on the entire discourse and well being of society writ large.
- kaladin_1 5y ago
  Do you have any alternative platform where people that genuinely feel oppressed can call for help or even assemble themselves. Not everything about Twitter is good, but, for countries at the verge of losing their right to free speech, access to twitter proves essential until there's a better alternative.
  - tasogare 5y ago
    > Do you have any alternative platform where people that genuinely feel oppressed can call for help or even assemble themselves. Yes, it's called the Web. It's a somewhat decentralized platform where people can publish websites. With some effort, it's not too hard to escape local government censorship on it.
    - filleduchaos 5y ago
      You are aware that the government you are applauding censors access to other portions of the Web too, yes? Or do you think *.twitter.com is magically the first?
throwaway6250 5y ago
Kudos to Nigeria. The government, and governmental policies of any country are for their citizens to decide, not for Silicon Valley elites to dictate. Any other time period elites trying to control other countries political affairs would be called for what it is -- imperialism.
- jakelazaroff 5y ago
  Are the citizens deciding this, or is their government deciding for them? It seems like a lot of people are trying to circumvent the ban.
  - throwaway6250 5y ago
    Nigeria is a (albeit flawed) democratic government with elections which the current President won in 2019. Jack Dorsey personally donated to protesters. Twitter also created an emoticon to support them.[1] Then Twitter decides to remove the sitting President's post. We all saw how well the "Arab Spring" went. We don't need Big Tech to go and create more failed states. Strong democracy and good government never work being built top down. [1] https://africa.businessinsider.com/local/lifestyle/twitter-unveils-emoji-in-support-of-endsars-protests/7emvggn https://africa.businessinsider.com/local/lifestyle/twitter-u...
    - totalZero 5y ago
      The current president already executed a coup d'etat against a democratic government once in the 1980s. How many of those has Jack Dorsey done?
      - filleduchaos 5y ago
        A question for the ages. It is honestly so frustrating seeing people talk about situations they obviously know nothing about. Imagine claiming to be arguing in support of freedom and democracy via applauding a man that literally deposed a civilian government and installed himself as a military dictator while he was in the army! People are so preoccupied with the speck of "censorship" in a private company's eye that they completely neglect the log of actual, murderously violent authoritarianism in the eye of the side they're supporting. I'm not even sure why I bother to participate in conversations about Nigeria outside of Nigerian spaces.
    - jakelazaroff 5y ago
      The fact that Nigeria is a democracy doesn’t mean much on its own. In the US, for example, conservative politicians consistently oppose issues such as abortion, gun control and healthcare even though a healthy majority of the population support them. Another commenter alleges that the current Nigerian government is very unpopular, which doesn’t paint this decision in a great light. Also: it’s misleading to suggest Jack Dorsey or Twitter supported protests against the government. His donation and the hashtag were for #EndSARS, which is an anti–police brutality movement.
OoTheNigerian 5y ago
For specific context: a tweet that was deemed threatening and inciteful to a segment of the country - the south east (where I'm from), was sent from the President's account. After sustained uproar and outrage, Twitter deleted the Tweet. Blocking Twitter is the response. --- For background context: This government is very unpopular. Twitter has been the medium where the atrocities of the government has been publicized. Last year there was a very popular protest #ENDSARS (campaigning against police brutalization and killings) to which Jack Dorsey made a donation. Earlier this year, Twitter opened their West African office in Ghana. It was seen as a massive snub and embarrassment to Nigeria. So the government has had a hurt ego brewing for a while. PS: The great irony is that this government used the influence of social media to get into power. So this is them throwing down the ladder after using it. AMA.
- bertil 5y ago
  Do you expect a peaceful resolution? It’s great to tell a bully to calm down, but you want either them to calm down (which doesn’t seem likely here) or more reasonable people to take over.
  - OoTheNigerian 5y ago
    To be honest, we don't know where this is going. We all want a peaceful outcome. The next elections are in 2023 so there is no near resolution by the ballot. There is over 50% unemployment, mega inflation, currency devaluation etc and yet a consistent clampdown on anything deemed progressive by the government. The truth is, if anything happens to the peace of Nigeria and if only 5%, of its occupants get displaced (10million people) the world will feel it's impact in a very negative way. Unfortunately, thanks to COVID, Brexit et al, no one is paying attention so the government assumes it has it has a freehand. Unfortunately for them, our population is very young, quite adept at adapting, innovative etc. So I do not see us backing down. Despite the worst of policies, there has been unprecedented growth in our tech startup scene (YC can testify) So for now, we watch.
- filleduchaos 5y ago
  Also worth noting that the Nigerian government has explicitly been using China/the CCP as an inspiration for its information & communications policy for a while now. Alas, they're not interested in copying the economic growth or infrastructure development to go with the authoritarianism. Not even a crumb of carrot to go with the stick.
jMyles 5y ago
It's astounding to watch both states and companies work so tirelessly to pretend that the contours of the internet are isomorphic with the current political borders of the planet. The internet is under no obligation to recognize or respect those borders, and on sufficiently large time scales, certainly will not. So what's all the tantrum throwing? Can't we let states be states, and let the internet be the internet, and then see which one emerges as the more human (and more humane) phenomenon? A company deleted a tweet. A state has blocked access to the servers of that country insofar as it can control network access. What is the takeaway?
factorialboy 5y ago
India will be next to ban Twitter. And their govt. is not unpopular, nor will that decision be insignificant to the price of Twitter stock.
- Hamuko 5y ago
  >And their govt. is not unpopular Will they actually remain "not unpopular" if they ban Twitter?
  - anovikov 5y ago
    Can Twitter be a concern at all for vast majority of Indian voters?
    - boruto 5y ago
      Nope. May be Facebook ban can have some impact.
  - factorialboy 5y ago
    Twitter ban is a non factor except for a minority of India's western educated elite. Most Indian users will happily migrate to whichever platform emerges the winner after Twitter gets the boot.
  - perryizgr8 5y ago
    The govt is unpopular already among the demographic that uses Twitter. So it won't make much difference.
- k__ 5y ago
  Interesting. To me, India seemed like the most reasonable in that region.
  - notsureaboutpg 5y ago
    I can't imagine why, as an Indian. This is the government who pays people to troll for the ruling party on Twitter/Whatsapp all the time and trend irrelevant, ridiculous, fake news. Every other neighboring government neighboring (except China) is more reasonable in regards to social media.
amadeuspagel 5y ago
Whenever twitter bans someone, there's a chorus of comments saying that twitter is just a website, just use some uncensorable p2p protocol, etc.. It seems like all of this would also apply to twitter itself getting banned, and yet I don't see any such comments here.
- jakelazaroff 5y ago
  A company deciding not to transact with someone is not analogous to a government preventing its citizens from accessing portions of the web.
  - throwaway6250 5y ago
    The idea that companies should be able to control governments is a very american idea, and is pretty much not accepted anywhere else. When a website actively supports destabilizing forces against a nation, the least that nation (and it's people) can do is to block said website.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
  - amadeuspagel 5y ago
    My comment states a specific analogy, which is that a lot of the excuses people give for the former also apply to the latter. You can't refute this just by stating that it's "not analogous".
    - jakelazaroff 5y ago
      I suppose they’re speciously similar, but the argument at its core is “people should be able to freely associate” which cuts against this decision by the Nigerian government.
- filleduchaos 5y ago
  It seems obvious to me that no matter what you personally think of e.g. a restaurant refusing to serve food to someone or even a group of people, the federal government issuing and implementing a decree (all within a matter of hours!) that bans all citizens/residents of the country from even entering said restaurant is a ridiculous overreaction and a gross abuse of state power.
anovikov 5y ago
In countries like this, are people even trying to rely on "white" Internet? In places like Belarus, certainly not. Many people just simply use ToR as their main browser.
- Mediterraneo10 5y ago
  Belarus is among the repressive countries that have not made it too difficult to get around censorship. Sure, sites get blocked, but you can fire up Tor or create a proxy with ssh -D and you are good. Unfortunately, Nigeria (like several other countries in the region) is interested in the Chinese approach to filtering. The Great Firewall has been able to block Tor and SSH workarounds for many years now. So, the outlook is grim.
  - anovikov 5y ago
    But everyone in China is using free internet at will, or are you joking? It's hardly possible to block it for people who actually want to access.
    - Mediterraneo10 5y ago
      No, they aren’t. Foreigners in China often get around the Great Firewall through foreigner-specific SIM cards or VPNs. A tiny, tiny amount of locals is able and interested in avoiding the Great Firewall. But for the vast majority of Chinese, the Great Firewall is never overcome; few even feel motivation to evade censorship. Compare that to a situation like Belarus where nearly every computer-literate person is aware of what to do.
vezycash 5y ago
Currently, the ban is only a government boycott. Burari's wife deactivated her Twitter account. I expect his party members to follow suite. At the moment Twitter is freely accessible in Nigeria. Maybe in coming months, the Buhari government would work with China to enforce the ban.
- filleduchaos 5y ago
  > At the moment Twitter is freely accessible in Nigeria. It very much is not and has not been (fully, freely) accessible since around midnight today local time. See https://twitter.com/netblocks/status/1401075546604322817 https://twitter.com/netblocks/status/1401075546604322817 for example.
filleduchaos 5y ago
From long and unfortunate experience I don't really expect better but I am honestly begging non-Nigerians (specifically westerners to be very honest) to have a shred of empathy for people outside your comfort zones when commenting on foreign affairs. I dearly wish I could have lived the sort of life that would make a social media platform removing people's posts or banning their accounts the great injustice of the day. I don't begrudge anyone that privilege but for goodness' sake try not to project your pet peeves on situations you barely know anything about. Nothing on this earth should bring you to the point of applauding a government headed by a literal ~former~ military dictator (and erstwhile genocidaire) because you are mad about a damn forum, especially when said government is in the business of killing its citizenry (both small and large scale).
kaladin_1 5y ago
I understand the sentiment of many people supporting the decision of the Nigerian Government. But, you have to understand that for us twitter is not a luxury like it may seem in the West. It is the only popular safe space to express your opinion and call for international help. So, even though some may like it, Nigerians and Africans fear this sort of move. It usually precedes pernicious acts of injustice that should be hidden. If only you know the role of Twitter during the monumental protest held last year by young people against Police Brutality here. I'm not canonizing Twitter, it's not without its faults, but, it's also of great use for us here. It technically the Assembly for the Youth
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
calltrak 5y ago
Well Facebook and Twitter banned Trump while he was in office. Freedom of speech is DEAD. If you make a comment on any of these big tech platforms including youtube about the dangerous experimental non vaccines you get banned too!

63 points by kaladin_1 5y ago

Smart. Honestly, every country should ban Twitter and Facebook. They are a net negative; this century's version of tobacco companies. Arguably worse, as they are a cancer on the entire discourse and well being of society writ large.

kaladin_1 5y ago
Do you have any alternative platform where people that genuinely feel oppressed can call for help or even assemble themselves. Not everything about Twitter is good, but, for countries at the verge of losing their right to free speech, access to twitter proves essential until there's a better alternative.
- tasogare 5y ago
  > Do you have any alternative platform where people that genuinely feel oppressed can call for help or even assemble themselves. Yes, it's called the Web. It's a somewhat decentralized platform where people can publish websites. With some effort, it's not too hard to escape local government censorship on it.
  - filleduchaos 5y ago
    You are aware that the government you are applauding censors access to other portions of the Web too, yes? Or do you think *.twitter.com is magically the first?

throwaway6250 5y ago

Kudos to Nigeria. The government, and governmental policies of any country are for their citizens to decide, not for Silicon Valley elites to dictate. Any other time period elites trying to control other countries political affairs would be called for what it is -- imperialism.

jakelazaroff 5y ago
Are the citizens deciding this, or is their government deciding for them? It seems like a lot of people are trying to circumvent the ban.
- throwaway6250 5y ago
  Nigeria is a (albeit flawed) democratic government with elections which the current President won in 2019. Jack Dorsey personally donated to protesters. Twitter also created an emoticon to support them.[1] Then Twitter decides to remove the sitting President's post. We all saw how well the "Arab Spring" went. We don't need Big Tech to go and create more failed states. Strong democracy and good government never work being built top down. [1] https://africa.businessinsider.com/local/lifestyle/twitter-unveils-emoji-in-support-of-endsars-protests/7emvggn https://africa.businessinsider.com/local/lifestyle/twitter-u...
  - totalZero 5y ago
    The current president already executed a coup d'etat against a democratic government once in the 1980s. How many of those has Jack Dorsey done?
    - filleduchaos 5y ago
      A question for the ages. It is honestly so frustrating seeing people talk about situations they obviously know nothing about. Imagine claiming to be arguing in support of freedom and democracy via applauding a man that literally deposed a civilian government and installed himself as a military dictator while he was in the army! People are so preoccupied with the speck of "censorship" in a private company's eye that they completely neglect the log of actual, murderously violent authoritarianism in the eye of the side they're supporting. I'm not even sure why I bother to participate in conversations about Nigeria outside of Nigerian spaces.
  - jakelazaroff 5y ago
    The fact that Nigeria is a democracy doesn’t mean much on its own. In the US, for example, conservative politicians consistently oppose issues such as abortion, gun control and healthcare even though a healthy majority of the population support them. Another commenter alleges that the current Nigerian government is very unpopular, which doesn’t paint this decision in a great light. Also: it’s misleading to suggest Jack Dorsey or Twitter supported protests against the government. His donation and the hashtag were for #EndSARS, which is an anti–police brutality movement.

OoTheNigerian 5y ago

For specific context: a tweet that was deemed threatening and inciteful to a segment of the country - the south east (where I'm from), was sent from the President's account. After sustained uproar and outrage, Twitter deleted the Tweet. Blocking Twitter is the response. --- For background context: This government is very unpopular. Twitter has been the medium where the atrocities of the government has been publicized. Last year there was a very popular protest #ENDSARS (campaigning against police brutalization and killings) to which Jack Dorsey made a donation. Earlier this year, Twitter opened their West African office in Ghana. It was seen as a massive snub and embarrassment to Nigeria. So the government has had a hurt ego brewing for a while. PS: The great irony is that this government used the influence of social media to get into power. So this is them throwing down the ladder after using it. AMA.

bertil 5y ago
Do you expect a peaceful resolution? It’s great to tell a bully to calm down, but you want either them to calm down (which doesn’t seem likely here) or more reasonable people to take over.
- OoTheNigerian 5y ago
  To be honest, we don't know where this is going. We all want a peaceful outcome. The next elections are in 2023 so there is no near resolution by the ballot. There is over 50% unemployment, mega inflation, currency devaluation etc and yet a consistent clampdown on anything deemed progressive by the government. The truth is, if anything happens to the peace of Nigeria and if only 5%, of its occupants get displaced (10million people) the world will feel it's impact in a very negative way. Unfortunately, thanks to COVID, Brexit et al, no one is paying attention so the government assumes it has it has a freehand. Unfortunately for them, our population is very young, quite adept at adapting, innovative etc. So I do not see us backing down. Despite the worst of policies, there has been unprecedented growth in our tech startup scene (YC can testify) So for now, we watch.
filleduchaos 5y ago
Also worth noting that the Nigerian government has explicitly been using China/the CCP as an inspiration for its information & communications policy for a while now. Alas, they're not interested in copying the economic growth or infrastructure development to go with the authoritarianism. Not even a crumb of carrot to go with the stick.

jMyles 5y ago

It's astounding to watch both states and companies work so tirelessly to pretend that the contours of the internet are isomorphic with the current political borders of the planet. The internet is under no obligation to recognize or respect those borders, and on sufficiently large time scales, certainly will not. So what's all the tantrum throwing? Can't we let states be states, and let the internet be the internet, and then see which one emerges as the more human (and more humane) phenomenon? A company deleted a tweet. A state has blocked access to the servers of that country insofar as it can control network access. What is the takeaway?

factorialboy 5y ago

India will be next to ban Twitter. And their govt. is not unpopular, nor will that decision be insignificant to the price of Twitter stock.

Hamuko 5y ago
>And their govt. is not unpopular Will they actually remain "not unpopular" if they ban Twitter?
- anovikov 5y ago
  Can Twitter be a concern at all for vast majority of Indian voters?
  - boruto 5y ago
    Nope. May be Facebook ban can have some impact.
- factorialboy 5y ago
  Twitter ban is a non factor except for a minority of India's western educated elite. Most Indian users will happily migrate to whichever platform emerges the winner after Twitter gets the boot.
- perryizgr8 5y ago
  The govt is unpopular already among the demographic that uses Twitter. So it won't make much difference.
k__ 5y ago
Interesting. To me, India seemed like the most reasonable in that region.
- notsureaboutpg 5y ago
  I can't imagine why, as an Indian. This is the government who pays people to troll for the ruling party on Twitter/Whatsapp all the time and trend irrelevant, ridiculous, fake news. Every other neighboring government neighboring (except China) is more reasonable in regards to social media.

amadeuspagel 5y ago

Whenever twitter bans someone, there's a chorus of comments saying that twitter is just a website, just use some uncensorable p2p protocol, etc.. It seems like all of this would also apply to twitter itself getting banned, and yet I don't see any such comments here.

jakelazaroff 5y ago
A company deciding not to transact with someone is not analogous to a government preventing its citizens from accessing portions of the web.
- throwaway6250 5y ago
  The idea that companies should be able to control governments is a very american idea, and is pretty much not accepted anywhere else. When a website actively supports destabilizing forces against a nation, the least that nation (and it's people) can do is to block said website.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- amadeuspagel 5y ago
  My comment states a specific analogy, which is that a lot of the excuses people give for the former also apply to the latter. You can't refute this just by stating that it's "not analogous".
  - jakelazaroff 5y ago
    I suppose they’re speciously similar, but the argument at its core is “people should be able to freely associate” which cuts against this decision by the Nigerian government.
filleduchaos 5y ago
It seems obvious to me that no matter what you personally think of e.g. a restaurant refusing to serve food to someone or even a group of people, the federal government issuing and implementing a decree (all within a matter of hours!) that bans all citizens/residents of the country from even entering said restaurant is a ridiculous overreaction and a gross abuse of state power.

anovikov 5y ago

In countries like this, are people even trying to rely on "white" Internet? In places like Belarus, certainly not. Many people just simply use ToR as their main browser.

Mediterraneo10 5y ago
Belarus is among the repressive countries that have not made it too difficult to get around censorship. Sure, sites get blocked, but you can fire up Tor or create a proxy with ssh -D and you are good. Unfortunately, Nigeria (like several other countries in the region) is interested in the Chinese approach to filtering. The Great Firewall has been able to block Tor and SSH workarounds for many years now. So, the outlook is grim.
- anovikov 5y ago
  But everyone in China is using free internet at will, or are you joking? It's hardly possible to block it for people who actually want to access.
  - Mediterraneo10 5y ago
    No, they aren’t. Foreigners in China often get around the Great Firewall through foreigner-specific SIM cards or VPNs. A tiny, tiny amount of locals is able and interested in avoiding the Great Firewall. But for the vast majority of Chinese, the Great Firewall is never overcome; few even feel motivation to evade censorship. Compare that to a situation like Belarus where nearly every computer-literate person is aware of what to do.

vezycash 5y ago

Currently, the ban is only a government boycott. Burari's wife deactivated her Twitter account. I expect his party members to follow suite. At the moment Twitter is freely accessible in Nigeria. Maybe in coming months, the Buhari government would work with China to enforce the ban.

filleduchaos 5y ago
> At the moment Twitter is freely accessible in Nigeria. It very much is not and has not been (fully, freely) accessible since around midnight today local time. See https://twitter.com/netblocks/status/1401075546604322817 https://twitter.com/netblocks/status/1401075546604322817 for example.

filleduchaos 5y ago

From long and unfortunate experience I don't really expect better but I am honestly begging non-Nigerians (specifically westerners to be very honest) to have a shred of empathy for people outside your comfort zones when commenting on foreign affairs. I dearly wish I could have lived the sort of life that would make a social media platform removing people's posts or banning their accounts the great injustice of the day. I don't begrudge anyone that privilege but for goodness' sake try not to project your pet peeves on situations you barely know anything about. Nothing on this earth should bring you to the point of applauding a government headed by a literal ~former~ military dictator (and erstwhile genocidaire) because you are mad about a damn forum, especially when said government is in the business of killing its citizenry (both small and large scale).

kaladin_1 5y ago

I understand the sentiment of many people supporting the decision of the Nigerian Government. But, you have to understand that for us twitter is not a luxury like it may seem in the West. It is the only popular safe space to express your opinion and call for international help. So, even though some may like it, Nigerians and Africans fear this sort of move. It usually precedes pernicious acts of injustice that should be hidden. If only you know the role of Twitter during the monumental protest held last year by young people against Police Brutality here. I'm not canonizing Twitter, it's not without its faults, but, it's also of great use for us here. It technically the Assembly for the Youth

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

calltrak 5y ago

Well Facebook and Twitter banned Trump while he was in office. Freedom of speech is DEAD. If you make a comment on any of these big tech platforms including youtube about the dangerous experimental non vaccines you get banned too!