
<p id="h-topline"><strong>TOPLINE</strong> Nigeria blocked access to Twitter in the country indefinitely on Friday evening, shortly after the company deleted a tweet by the country’s president, adding Africa’s most populous country to a short list of nations that have barred their citizens from using Twitter:</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-key-facts">KEY FACTS</h3>



<p><strong>Nigeria</strong>: The government&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/FMICNigeria/status/1400843062641717249" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">claimed</a>&nbsp;Twitter was&nbsp;<a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/nigerian-telecoms-firms-suspend-twitter-access-2021-06-05/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">banned</a>&nbsp;for “undermining Nigeria&#8217;s corporate existence,” and the Ministry of Justice has&nbsp;<a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-57368535" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">promised to prosecute</a>&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/05/africa/nigeria-prosecute-twitter-users-intl/index.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">violators</a>.</p>



<p><strong>China</strong>: Twitter and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/major-us-tech-companies-blocked-from-operating-in-china-2019-5" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">several other</a>&nbsp;Western social media networks are barred from operating in China, and authorities&nbsp;<a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2018/11/21/chinas-social-media-crackdown-targets-twitter" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">have spent several years</a>&nbsp;reportedly&nbsp;<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/chinese-censors-go-old-school-to-clamp-down-on-twitter-a-knock-on-the-door/2019/01/04/1bd462e4-f331-11e8-9240-e8028a62c722_story.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">cracking down</a>&nbsp;on people who manage to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/10/business/china-twitter-censorship-online.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">circumvent</a>&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-is-now-sending-twitter-users-to-prison-for-posts-most-chinese-cant-see-11611932917" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">the Twitter ban</a>.</p>



<p><strong>North Korea</strong>: The government generally&nbsp;<a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-37426725" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">doesn’t allow</a>&nbsp;its citizens to access&nbsp;<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/apr/01/north-korea-announces-blocks-on-facebook-twitter-and-youtube" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">foreign websites</a>, instead confining computer users to a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/11309882/Internet-in-North-Korea-everything-you-need-to-know.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">heavily restricted</a>&nbsp;and walled-off intranet.</p>



<p><strong>Iran</strong>: Twitter and Facebook have been off-limits&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/02/technology/iran-protests-social-media.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">since 2009</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/02/02/will-twitter-ban-irans-supreme-leader-next/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">amid</a>&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/ali-khamenei-ap-top-news-elections-international-news-mahmoud-ahmadinejad-ab649e2190834e19b1f006f76493645f?utm_campaign=socialflow&amp;utm_source=twitter&amp;utm_medium=ap" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">protests</a>&nbsp;and brutal crackdowns following former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s election win, though many Iranians&nbsp;<a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-01-10/iran-s-attempt-to-ban-instagram-is-doomed-to-fail" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">use VPNs</a>&nbsp;to dodge their country’s internet restrictions.</p>



<p><strong>Temporary Or Uncertain Bans</strong>: Egypt&nbsp;<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/jan/26/egypt-blocks-social-media-websites" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">cut off access</a>&nbsp;to Twitter during the 2011 Arab Spring protests, Turkey&nbsp;<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/03/21/turkey-bans-twitter-and-twitter-explodes/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">banned Twitter</a>&nbsp;for&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/04/world/middleeast/turkey-lifts-ban-on-twitter.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">two weeks</a>&nbsp;in 2014, Uganda&nbsp;<a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-uganda-election/uganda-bans-social-media-ahead-of-presidential-election-idUSKBN29H0KH" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">cut off social media</a>&nbsp;ahead of an election earlier this year, Pakistan has&nbsp;<a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-18138278" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">sporadically</a>&nbsp;<a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/pakistan-socialmedia-block/update-2-pakistan-restores-social-media-apps-after-temporary-block-on-security-grounds-officials-idUSL1N2M90E0" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">blocked</a>&nbsp;social media sites for brief periods, and Turkmenistan has restricted access to Twitter according to the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.state.gov/reports/2020-country-reports-on-human-rights-practices/turkmenistan/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">U.S. State Department</a>.</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-key-background">KEY BACKGROUND</h3>



<p>Nigeria’s faceoff with Twitter started earlier this week, when President Muhammadu Buhari threatened to deal with&nbsp;<a href="https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/world/africa/2021-04-06-separatist-group-attacks-nigerian-prison-as-more-than-1800-inmates-escape/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">separatist groups</a>&nbsp;<a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/nigerian-police-launch-operation-southeast-quell-violence-it-blames-separatists-2021-05-18/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">accused of violence</a>&nbsp;“in the language they understand,” a reference to the country’s brutal civil war more than 50 years ago. Twitter blocked Buhari from tweeting for 12 hours and ordered him to delete the post, which it claimed violated the site’s rules, the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-57336571" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">BBC reported</a>.</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-surprising-fact">SURPRISING FACT</h3>



<p>Many governments with Twitter bans still use the social media platform, often to disseminate information to foreign audiences. Chinese&nbsp;<a href="https://www.axios.com/china-diplomacy-twitter-7a6b8287-f7f0-4dc1-be8a-0eb146b111bc.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">diplomats</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/05/12/chinas-wolf-warrior-diplomats-like-talk-tough/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">staffers</a>&nbsp;regularly use Twitter to lash out at the country’s critics, Iran’s&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/hassanrouhani?lang=en" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">president</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/JZarif?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">foreign minister</a>&nbsp;are both active on the site, and Nigeria announced its decision to ban Twitter via tweet.</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-tangent">TANGENT</h3>



<p>Buhari is the latest head of state to face sanctions from Twitter. Earlier this year, the company&nbsp;<a href="https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/company/2020/suspension.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">banned</a>&nbsp;former President Donald Trump and&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-dubai-iran-united-arab-emirates-middle-east-b8767244595af326b423316a53635d86" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">deleted an account</a>&nbsp;<a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/01/22/959736537/twitter-bans-account-linked-to-irans-supreme-leader" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">ostensibly linked</a>&nbsp;to Iran’s supreme leader. Likewise, Facebook&nbsp;<a href="https://about.fb.com/news/2021/06/facebook-response-to-oversight-board-recommendations-trump/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">said Friday</a>&nbsp;it will stop giving deference to politicians when deciding whether to delete newsworthy content that violates its rules.</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-further-reading">FURTHER READING</h3>



<p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/05/world/africa/nigeria-twitter-president.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Nigeria Bans Twitter After President’s Tweet Is Deleted (New York Times)</a></p>



<p><strong><em>By Joe Walsh, Forbes Staff</em></strong></p>


Tag: Nigeria's President

FORBES AFRICA SOCIAL MEDIA

Nigeria Has Banned Twitter — Along With These Other Countries