FG suspends Twitter’s operations in Nigeria
The Federal Government has suspended indefinitely, the operations of the microblogging and social networking service, Twitter in Nigeria.
Twitter had removed a post by Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari for violating its rules.
The tweet referred to the 1967-70 Nigerian Civil War and to treating “those misbehaving today” in “the language they will understand”.
It follows a recent spate of attacks on offices, mainly in the south-east, blamed on regional secessionists.
Nigeria’s information minister called Twitter’s move unfair, labelling it “double standards”.
This is the first time a tweet from the president was deleted.
Buhari tweet on Tuesday reads: “Many of those misbehaving today are too young to be aware of the destruction and loss of lives that occurred during the Nigerian Civil War.
“Those of us in the fields for 30 months, who went through the war, will treat them in the language they understand.”
A Twitter spokesperson said the post “was in violation of the Twitter Rules.
“The account owner will be required to delete the violative Tweet and spend 12 hours with their account in read-only mode”.
The statement gave no further details.
The minister of information had said that “Twitter may have its own rules; it’s not the universal rule”, adding that if the president felt “concerned about a situation, he is free to express such views”.
He said Twitter had not banned incitement tweets from other groups.(NAN)
