The Nigerian government today made the decision to indefinitely suspend Twitter operations in Nigeria following a decision by Twitter to delete President Buhari’s seeming inciteful tweet days ago.
The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, announced the suspension in a statement issued in Abuja on Friday, citing the persistent use of the platform for activities that are capable of undermining Nigeria’s corporate existence.
The Minister said the Federal Government has also directed the National Broadcasting Commission to immediately commence the process of licensing all OTT and social media operations in Nigeria.
Lai Mohammed, Nigeria’s Information Minister
The Minister of Information Lai Mohammed made the government’s decision known to the public. The microblogging site is still accessible as the time of writing this but expect it to start going down gradually within the country and here is how they might achieve it.
Major Internet Service Providers (ISPs) like Glo, MTN, Phase 3 and Galaxy Backbone among others may start blocking the Twitter domain name meaning that you any URL that has the twitter.com or any of its subdomains like blog.twitter.com will no longer be accessed by anyone using any of the service providers in Nigeria.
I used the term major ISPs because there are ISPs that act as virtual operator in that they sell internet services on the license of a bigger operator which means that as the bigger operator blocks Twitter, their own users will also get automatically blocked.
But the Nigerian government is not the first to do this. China is the biggest example where major western tech giants still don’t operate because they are blocked. Countries sometimes temporarily block these companies sometimes when the want to carry out an operation, It has happened more than once in Turkey.
Way Out
Many Nigerians will have to rely on Virtual Private Network (VPN) providers.
A VPN (Virtual Private Network) changes your IP address and gives you anonymity on the Internet, secures your connection, and gives access to geo-restricted websites such as 192.168.0.1 & many more. A VPN will automatically disguise your IP address every time you connect to the Internet. An interesting fact is that they are totally legal in most parts of the world – excluding China and Russia! Here are some significant advantages of installing a VPN on your device –
When you browse the Internet, data logs are generated that can be tracked and accessed by Internet service providers (ISP), security threat actors, etc. for information gathering. Switching to a VPN will not collect your data logs.
As your device connects to a VPN server, it will be sent through an encrypted tunnel that prevents outside users from examining your data. By encrypting your business data, a VPN ensures that unauthorized users cannot see your private data even if they access it.
VPN breaks through regional restrictions, allowing its users to enjoy the freedom of visiting sites in one go, accessing P2P services, and using VoIP apps and IM tools.
Disney Plus is for example not available in Nigeria but you may access it using a VPN service. Netflix serves content sometimes based on regions which means if you want to access some other content in other regions, you may need a VPN.
Paul Balo is the founder of TechBooky and a highly skilled wireless communications professional with a strong background in cloud computing, offering extensive experience in designing, implementing, and managing wireless communication systems.
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