Nigeria Plans to Regulate Facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter, and others

In a draft entitled, Draft Code of Practice provided by Nigeria's internet regulator, there are ongoing plans to control online social networking services including Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, Twitter, Google, and TikTok.

The National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) announced this information on Monday, published on the agency's website and Twitter account.

Any one of the networks operating in Nigeria must provide "any information under its domain or any assistance to any authorized government agency for the purpose of carrying out an investigation, combating cybercrime, or prosecuting an offense," according to a section of the code aimed at regulating social media.

The government also wants social networking companies to follow Nigerian laws and "not deploy or modify their Platform in any way that will undermine or interfere with the application and/or enforcement of the law."

Nigeria withdrew its Twitter ban six months ago, after it originally announced a ban on the social networking company in the country.

Twitter agreed to the Nigerian government’s proposal of setting up a legal company in the country during the first quarter of 2022 before it would be reinstated, according to a document written by Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi, the director-general of NITDA, to Nigeria's president, Muhammadu Buhari, at the time.

According to TechCrunch, paying local taxes and helping with the Nigerian government to monitor content and harmful comments were among the others. Although the year is halfway gone none of the prerequisites seem to have been reached. But that hasn't deterred the government from extending the rules to other online businesses, including Meta-owned platforms, Twitter, and Google.

According to NITDA, the proposal was written in response to a presidential directive. It also claimed to work with Nigeria's communications and television regulatory organizations, as well as invite feedback from the internet giants whose businesses are affected by the proposal

The draft is available for public review and comment, according to the agency. However, considering the criticism it got following Twitter's prohibition, as well as suspicions of government monitoring and suffocation of free speech in Nigeria, it's uncertain whether it will continue.

However, this will not be the first time the Nigerian government has considered regulating social media networks; it has toyed with the concept in recent years. The most recent was in June, when the government directed the broadcasting regulator, the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC), to initiate the process of licensing the operational processes of social media and OTT platforms in the country, including YouTube, Zoom, WhatsApp, and Skype, in the same statement announcing Twitter's ban.

The NITDA draft is the most recent movement and some Nigerians believe it will likely end there. Others, however, are concerned that the Nigerian government would go too far and shut down these social websites, as it did with Twitter.