I believe that Mark Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsey have visited Nigeria in recent times to coordinate with the Federal Government, in preparation for the famed Social Media Bill. The restrictions of free speech will, as it is in other dictatorships, be enforced by social media sites themselves. My reasoning is simple. First, our Hate Speech Bill is not the first of it's kind. In fact, OkayAfrica recently reported that the bill is a replica of Singapore's own repressive and extremely strict Hate Speech legislation. So, to understand what Jack Dorsey and Mark Zuckerberg were in Nigeria for, let look at the relationship they have with Singapore.

Singapore's Hate Speech bill exists to 'suppress certain kids of unwelcome political speech...for public safety'. Singapore is a multi-religious, multi-ethnic society that puts very different people be they Cantonese, Thai, Malay, Muslim, British, Christian or Buddhist together in a tight, rigidly controlled island. It is a one party dictatorship where descent but illegal. Social media, in it's early days in Singapore, was the only real outlet for opposition politicians, as public demonstration and questioning of the regime in power was often batted down by the countries stiff public conduct laws.

Today, those public conduct laws have a social media equivalent. But unlike the predecessors that were enforced by baton waving police, and long jail sentences...the social media sites themselves are the enforcers

Facebook and Twitter will enforce the Nigerian Social Media Bill. Not the Federal Government, or any internal agency. In Singapore, Facebook, Google, and Twitter handle the censorship on behalf of the government for unsaid returns. The social media giants have decided to aid dictatorial governments in silence dissent early this decade, when, through the Chinese example, it was deemed better to help enforce freedom restrictions in dictatorships than to be ban for the country all together. Rather than risking losing the Nigeria market, the tech giants are opting to work under the terms of the only body that can keep them from the billions of dollars and millions of users that is Nigeria.

Unfortunately, by the time the crackdown begins, the masses will still have no alternative outlet. It is important to remember that Facebook owns Instagram, and Whatsapp. Google owns Youtube and a list of others, and in the grand scheme of things all social media sites used by over 500 million people are in the hands of these three cooperative companies. With Facebook and Twitter open to do business in this new growing dictatorships, I think we should be more critical and questioning when the tech billionaires take a strange new interest in Nigeria. Especially, in this climate.

Facebook also helps Vietnam silence opposition and dissent: http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/04/facebook-helped-vietnamese-government-censor-dissidents.html

and Saudi rights campaigner, Manal al-Sharif, recently quit using social media as a whole, saying that Facebook at Twitter actively assist the Saudi government in cracking down on, and tracking down dissenters. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/oct/28/twitter-facebook-saudi-oppression


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Agreed

Nairaland has already been compromised as well so no local alternatives

Good research work......will Nairaland play god too?

gloriaunobi:
Good research work......will Nairaland play god too?

If the bill passes, I don't think Nairaland will have much choice though I do think Nairaland is harder to control than the other sites.

Another load of shyte