In Nigeria, while authorities suspended access to Twitter on Friday, June 4, the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) is asking the media to shut down their social networking accounts. They reacted.
“All audiovisual media will be considered antipatriotic if it continues to use Twitter, which is shut down,” the NBC statement said.
International partners in a joint statement said that such a measure was not the solution.
If the audiovisual media respects the measure of NBC, for fear of fines or prosecution, the written media will continue their activities tonight on this social network, via their virtual private network (VPN). The profession is committed to this measure. “We are not worried because it is our job and it must be done,” says the editor of the Premium Times. Contacted by RFI, the National Union of Nigerian Journalists condemns an action that “absolutely violates the freedom of the press and freedom of expression, protests against the President of the Union Emmanuel Ogbeche. “This is not good, we think it is dubious, we think it is disturbing. We hope that the Nigerian Government will correct this imbalance as soon as possible.”
The union specifies that discussions are underway with the government to allow audiovisual media to resume operations on social media Twitter. This dialogue has been going on since the controversial broadcast code came into force. We will continue the dialogue with the government in the hope that this article of this code will be withdrawn. We will continue on this path as dialogue remains the only option for us, the only option for us to remedy loopholes in existing rules and codes in the broadcasting industry ”.
On Friday night, the Ministry of Information and Culture announced that government suspended for an indefinite period of time the service on the social network after the removal of a tweet from President Buhari, in the belief that he violates its rules of use regarding hateful behavior.
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