After battling Twitter, Nigeria's Information Minister seems to be shifting focus to Facebook, others
When Nigeria's Information Minister, Lai Mohammed, met with Facebook executives in Abuja earlier this week, he had one clear message —curtail hate speech now!
When Nigeria's Information Minister, Lai Mohammed, met with Facebook executives in Abuja earlier this week, he had one clear message —curtail hate speech now!
According to the minister, Facebook hasn't done enough in this regard. He cited an example of separatist group the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB); describing it as a terrorist organisation and complaining that the social media giant has failed to do something about the alleged hate speeches that are peddled on Facebook by the group.
"Facebook has no justification for yielding its platform to the organisation to further its campaign of hate and destabilisation of the country," the minister said.
Do note that the minister specifically summoned the Facebook officials for deliberations on how to curtail the use of social media by separatists and terrorists in spreading their messages.
It should be recalled that the need to curtail hate speech was one of the arguments Lai Mohammed and his team put forward during the government's recent face-off with Twitter. And after battling the microblogging site and forcing it to accept a number of conditions, the minister said the government has now switched focus to monitoring Meta and its subsidiaries towards ensuring that the tech giant commits to curbing hate speech.
The move comes as the Nigerian Government steps up its campaign for what has been described as "responsible use of social media," Reuters quoted him to have said.
The minister did clarify that the President Muhammadu Buhari led government does not intend to prevent Nigerians from using social media. However, the government would love to see measures put in place to guarantee 'responsible use'.
READ: 20 African countries with the most expensive average prices of mobile data
Across Africa, many governments are stepping up to regulate social media giants such as Facebook and Twitter. The efforts so far has included a combination of policies, stakeholder engagements and even partial bans in places like Nigeria, Ethiopia, Zimbabwe, Sudan, etc.
