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Nigeria Suspends Twitter Indefinitely After President's Tweet is Deleted (businessinsider.com) 95

Posted by msmash from the breaking-news dept.
The Nigerian government suspended all Twitter operations in the country on Friday. From a report: Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the Nigerian minister of information and culture, said the decision stemmed from citizens using the platform for activities "capable of undermining Nigeria's corporate existence," according to a press release. The move follows Twitter's decision to remove a post by Nigeria's president Muhammadu Buhari that threatened to punish those responsible for recent attacks on electoral offices and police stations, and referenced the country's 1960s civil war that killed 1 million people, Reuters reported. "Those of us in the fields for 30 months, who went through the war, will treat them in the language they understand," Buhari said in a tweet before Twitter removed the post for violating its "abusive behavior" policy.
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Nigeria Suspends Twitter Indefinitely After President's Tweet is Deleted More

Nigeria Suspends Twitter Indefinitely After President's Tweet is Deleted

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  • Who will save the Nigerian Millionares? (Score:3)

    by chuckugly ( 2030942 ) on Friday June 04, 2021 @12:30PM (#61454278)

    Without Twitter to plead the case of the ....

    Oh screw it, I don't have the energy to even finish the joke.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Only one of those two events are censorship.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Yes, indeed, twitter should not have censored..

      • Re:Twitter blocks you.. You block Twitter (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Impy the Impiuos Imp ( 442658 ) on Friday June 04, 2021 @12:52PM (#61454392) Journal

        Only one of those two events are censorship.

        "I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend your right to say it to the deat[post censorer by Twitter reason: violence]"

      • Twitter drew first blood

      • Re:Twitter blocks you.. You block Twitter (Score:5, Interesting)

        by lsllll ( 830002 ) on Friday June 04, 2021 @01:05PM (#61454464)

        This. Why is this so hard to understand for some people to understand? By removing a tweet that doesn't cause imminent harm to anyone, Twitter is basically saying "The readers of this tweet are too dumb to draw conclusions for themselves" or worse, "The content of this tweet doesn't agree with our views."

        Disclaimer: I did not read the tweet, but I doubt it would have caused imminent harm to anyone.

    • Re:Twitter blocks you.. You block Twitter (Score:5, Funny)

      by fishscene ( 3662081 ) on Friday June 04, 2021 @12:43PM (#61454346)

      Now all of Nigeria is fully compliant with Twitter's policies. That's amazing! Everyone should do the same.

  • Can someone explain why the weird corporate was used to describe a country?

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by decep ( 137319 )

      The term "corporate" was used correctly to mean "of, relating to, or formed into a unified body of individuals".

      Its literally in the dictionary!

      • It's still a bad translation, since the word has no current use outside of capitalistic enterprises.

        Actually this reminds me of a few recent incidents in which an amazon listings (presumably by somebody reliant on a dictionary or autotranslation) used the N-word in reference to black shoes, or in another instance a doll with dark skin.

        • Clearly it does but maybe you are correct only on America?

        • Except it might not be a translation at all. The official site for the ministry uses those words and many educated people in Africa actually use a fairly formal sounding English compared to the US normal versions.

          So he could well have said the statement in English, using those very words and using them properly.

          Just because the usage is different in US does not make it wrong.

        • I actually now heard the minister talk about the twitter ban and he spoke very proper sounding English and used the same words. So not a translation but direct quote.

    • Probably translation of some concept of the country continuing as an ongoing legal entity.

    • It is used as such quite often.

      Like in:
      A History Of Political Theory
      by Sabine George H.

      "Human law arises by the corporate action of a people setting up rules to govern the acts of its members, or conversely, a state is the body of men who owe obedience to a given body of law."

      and

      "The state, then, is a corporate body, membership in which is the common possession of all its citizens; it exists to supply its members with the advantages of mutual aid and just government."

  • Lol (Score:4, Insightful)

    by beepsky ( 6008348 ) on Friday June 04, 2021 @12:43PM (#61454342)
    It's Nigeria's internet backbone, they can ban whomever they want from it.
    If Twitter got banned then why doesn't Twitter just create their own internet backbone that allows this kind of behaviour?
    • I assume you are trying to draw a (bad) comparison to situations where private entities choose not to do business with insurrectionists an fail to account for the difference between government censorship and private choice.

      But to answer your question, this *does* happen. Or at least in a way. It's somewhat less tolerated now but many Chinese people used to have small satellite dishes to pick up western media.

      But yes it would be much harder in this case. Twitter would have to launch their own internet

      • Re:Lol (Score:4, Informative)

        by beepsky ( 6008348 ) on Friday June 04, 2021 @01:37PM (#61454574)
        When the Trumptards were banned from Twitter they created Gab.
        Gab was funded via Patreon or PayPal donations.
        Twitter cunts harassed Patreon or PayPal until they cut off service to Gab, thereby cutting off their ability to fund themselves.
        So then they created Hatreon, which is a Patreon clone for people who've been blacklisted by services with limp wristed managers.
        Twitter cunts then harassed VISA until they cut off VISA payments to Hatreon, killing the site.
        Basically, it's exactly the same in the end, you're wrong.

        http://stonetoss.com/comic/build-big/

        • Would you mind posting your mailing address? I'd like to send you a money order for $0.02, just to demonstrate how fucking stupid it is to believe that it's impossible to send money without VISA, Patreon, and PayPal.

          What really happened is that the typical demographic of these alt-right social media cesspits, is one made up of moochers who only will use a platform funded on someone else's dime. There's a name for conservatives who hate the idea of socializing the cost of something until their ideology com

          • it begins with an "h".

            helicopters?

          • You'd have an argument if it weren't for the fact that you extend "mooching" all the way to the point of the entire banking and financial system as well as basic fucking infrastructure, and "alt-right" is literally everyone who isn't fringe left and further.

      • Sorry, but if the only difference is the magnitude of the effort needed to circumvent the ban, censorship by public and private entities can still be equated. In addition, you have the level of difficulty reversed. Twitter has enough money to launch a satellite and start an ISP, but the typical banned Twitter user can not afford to build, maintain, and host a website.

        • Well that and, in places with government censorship, you have the added difficulty that you get sent to jail or worse if you get caught trying to circumvent the ban. If AWS chooses not to do business with somebody, the police don't come show if you they try to register for a GCP account. The only difference is the level of difficulty of dealing with heavily armed law enforcement. But other than that they are kind of in some way similar. If two things are the same except for having to take on a well-trai

          • If two things are the same except for having to take on a well-trained, heavily-armed military, those things are.... not the same at all.

            I know you are trying to imply that the government banning twitter is the greater burden to overcome, but since twitter is a corporation, it can't go to jail.

            If AWS chooses not to do business with somebody, the police don't come show if you they try to register for a GCP account.

            Not true. If you manage to host your business on AWS without their permission, police do show up.

    • TCP/IP was designed to route around this sort of thing like a slime mold, but the actual net evolved vertebrae.

      Nobody seemed to think this was a problem at the time. It just worked. It scaled great. Gradually, in hindsight, it becomes clear just what we've lost.

      But never fear. TCP/IP is still designed to route around this sort of thing. What we need now is a fundamentalist movement calling for a literal interpretation of the RFCs. Oh, and some clever electronics. And likely a replacement for DNS.

      And a lot o

    • Or why doesn't twitter just create their own country instead? That would be easier.

    • That's an easy one: Because the Nigerian government wouldn't let them.

      The Nigerians, all told, are probably better off without that kind of addictive substance anyway. Here's hoping Twitter exits India, and Florida too, whose governments are all trying to dictate their content policies.

    • It's Nigeria's internet backbone, they can ban whomever they want from it.
      If Twitter got banned then why doesn't Twitter just create their own internet backbone that allows this kind of behaviour?

      Not sure who you're imagining disputes that, or why you think it's funny. It doesn't matter if Nigeria had one backbone or a thousand redundant connections to the rest of the internet if its government has authority to regulate them, it can, just like the US government can regulate Twitter if it wanted to. Or anything else it wants to on the US side of the Internet if it had the authority to do so. Authority which would come from within, not anywhere else.

      If you don't like Twitter don't use it or make yo

  • when we Patriotic Americans(TM) can do the same here!

  • As long as they don't block emails (Score:4, Funny)

    by Rosco P. Coltrane ( 209368 ) on Friday June 04, 2021 @01:20PM (#61454526)

    I'm still waiting for payment confirmation on my account from Adewale Ndongo, a former Nigerian prince whom I helped unlock his inheritance. I sent him 0.00001 bitcoins, which is roughly equivalent to 120 trillion dollars, and he promised to repay me back 500 billion Nigerian pounds, which is roughly equivalent to $1.50. In terms of play money, I'm totally winning! But only if email goes through.

  • Nigeria Suspends Twitter Indefinitely After President's Tweet is Deleted

    So... who's guilty of Cancel Culture? Twitter or Nigeria? ;)

    • Twitter has pretty clear guidelines of bannable behaviors. One person broke the rules and got banned for doing so.

      On the other hand, the weak president was so butt-hurt he decided if he can't use Twitter, no one in his country can.

      Neither of these is really cancel culture.

      Rules enforcement isn't cancel culture. Cancel culture is when one group's rules spill over into other arenas.

      Unilateral de-platforming isn't really cancel culture either. Cancel culture is about leveraging social media and other multiplie

      • The president was elected. Twitter is a propaganda tool. It can't be clearer. The only butthurt is in people defending twitter on twitter lol.

      • but since when does twitter ban other nations people by US standards? They dont do that in the middle east.

      • Twitter's guidelines aren't remotely clear, people are routinely and constantly threatened or banned for things that don't remotely fall afoul of what few things aren't vaguely and easily misinterpreted or weaponized. On top of that it's absolutely blatant that twitter's rules are utterly corrupt and hypocritical, they don't even pretend anymore that blue checks are overwhelmingly used for political endorsement and grant exemptions from those rules.

        That's why Reza Aslan can publicly call for violence agains

  • Nigeria has 200 million people and a fast-growing economy. If twitter is blocked then people will find an alternative and leave twitter shut out of Africa's most populous country. Good for Nigeria.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by sfcat ( 872532 )
      It has a per capita GDP of about $2200 per year. And even that is a lie as most of that is oil revenue that never makes it outside of the government official's bank accounts. That makes it poor even by African standards. I doubt there is much advertising revenue associated with targeting the Nigerian market.

  • I've read the tweet in TFS a bunch of times, and I still don't understand Twitter's objection. What's the "abusive behavior"? It sounds like the president promised to bring some criminals to justice. Typical law-and-order political rhetoric.
    I think Twitter would be better off if they went back to ignoring what people post.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Jzanu ( 668651 )
      Nigeria's government is failing in major ways. There was a near revolution a few months ago that was suppressed in Tiananmen Square style with the military firing on crowds for extended periods of time. There are also routine calls for violence between ethnic tribes by political leaders. It would not surprise me if Buhari went full-on Ghedaffi and advocated genocide, using lots of indirect phrasing that it requires local knowledge to understand. A lot of other politicians have done the same, and in several
  • Cancel YOU! HA!

  • Muhammadu Buhari: *signs up for Twitter and agrees to their ToS which includes what type of language they will allow - regardless of who you are and what country you're from*
    Muhammadu Buhari: *makes post that violates the ToS*
    Twitter: *deletes post and does not ban entire account*
    Alhaji Lai Mohammed: "How dare Twitter do exactly what they said they would do when we agreed to it?!" *bans Twitter*

    I fucking hate Twitter and even the concept of it. But what I do understand is ToS. You don't get to agree to the

  • Plenty of people in the middle easy say things that are against the twitter rules, but they are judged by the standards of the mid east instead of the western standards for which nigeria has been judged.

  • Context (Score:4, Insightful)

    by DrMrLordX ( 559371 ) on Friday June 04, 2021 @04:57PM (#61455414)

    Bear in mind that Nigeria is currently undergoing a good bit of domestic strife, which is briefly mentioned in the article. Some of the government police units there have taken to firing on protesters. Twitter seems to be choosing sides here by considering President Buhari's tweet to be a thinly-veiled threat for more violence against protesters.

    If Dorsey et al actually believed that Buhari's tactics were acceptable given the circumstances, it's likely that they never would have cited a policy violation or deleted his tweet. They should not be surprised that Buhari has reacted accordingly.

  • After Dorsey met the princeling of the Nehru tribe who masquerade as âoeGandhis,â Twitterâ(TM)s campaign against the government of India picked up steam.

    The GoI has encouraged alternatives to Twitter, but hasnâ(TM)t yet pulled the plug. Just a matter of time.

    Aside: the political family known as Gandhis arenâ(TM)t any relation to the old fellow you have in mind. Indira Nehru wanted to marry a bloke named Feroze Jehangir Ghandy and her father, Jawahar Lal Nehru only agreed to the marr

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