Twitter was wrong to have deleted that statement issued under the handle of the Nigerian President
There was absolutely nothing wrong in that statement. It took literally hundreds of much worse tweets by (Donald) Trump before Twitter took action.
And just today, I have caught worse tweets by other American (right-wing) politicians. Those tweets have not been deleted. Those leaders have not been ridiculed.
I draw a line between when I am disciplining my child and when a stranger wants to discipline my child. It’s a no-no for me. Even if our president is bad, it does not mean I will rejoice when a private, for-profit, foreign entity like Twitter does wrong by him.
For after all, Twitter is a for-profit, FOREIGN organisation. It can’t reside in a country that champions free speech and then arbitrarily muzzle free speech elsewhere.
Or, it could! It could muzzle free speech elsewhere. It’s a private entity. But when it does so and gets slapped back, I will have no sympathy for it.
How many worse, violence-promoting, anti-Nigeria tweets has Twitter allowed just this week alone?
Now, does Nigeria have the technological know-how to independently enforce the ban? I don’t know. I know that North Korea severely curtails the use of Facebook, YouTube and Twitter, and Iran banned Facebook and Twitter. Russia also once mulled restrictions of Facebook and Twitter, while the Trump administration threatened to block TicTok last year.
If Nigeria can enforce the ban, I am for it. Even if we can’t enforce the ban, I appreciate the symbolic gesture.
I just would not have used a whole minister to announce the ban. And I would not have announced it on Twitter. It is counter-intuitive. I would have asked a much junior staff in the information ministry to issue the press release. Dazzol.
•Source: Facebook
