FG’s Refusal to Lift Twitter Ban Sees Facebook, Instagram Dominate Social Media in Nigeria

FG’s Refusal to Lift Twitter Ban Sees Facebook, Instagram Dominate Social Media in Nigeria

  • Facebook continues to be a leading social media platform in Nigeria with its sister company, Instagram following
  • The Twitter ban affected its popularity in Nigeria but analysts say that is not the case because users IP addresses do not show Nigeria
  • Buhari's government banned Twitter and continues to square up with the site, listing several conditions to lift the ban

Buhari’s government’s refusal to lift the ban on Twitter has seen Facebook and Instagram soar in popularity in Nigeria.

The ban affected the bird app’s rising popularity in the country. Before the ban, it had deleted a tweet by President Muhammadu which threatened the people of the southeast.

FG’s Refusal to Lift Twitter Ban Sees Facebook, Instagram Dominate Social Media in Nigeria
Facebook and Twitter stats Credit: Pascal Oparada
Source: Original

Data from Gsocunter show that Facebook is leading the pack of popular social media in Nigeria by a much as 83.27 per cent, followed by Instagram at 10.51 per cent, YouTube follows with 2.86 per cent, Pinterest at 2.79 per cent.

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Twitter's popularity dwindled to 0.2 per cent in usage and the career social network, LinkedIn at 0.18 per cent.

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'It's not true, Twitter still popular'

Analysts believe that Twitter has not lost its popularity in Nigeria because most users use Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) which routes their IP addresses to other countries rather than Nigeria.

Prior to the ban in June this year, Twitter was almost neck on neck with Facebook at 35 per cent while Facebook usage stood at 43 per cent.

During the Independence Day broadcast, Buhari gave a litany of conditions to lifting the Twitter ban in Nigeria.

Nigerians rejected Buhari’s conditions, saying they are draconian and does not suit a democracy like Nigeria.

FG assures Twitter ban will be lifted

Meanwhile, Legit.ng reported that there are indications that the long suspension of Twitter's operation in Nigeria will be lifted very soon by the federal government.

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Recent research reveals that so far, out of the ten demands made to the social media platform, only one is yet to be met.

Moreover, an insider source who spoke with Guardian disclosed that the government and the Twitter team have made significant progress and that the former is ready to finalise issues surrounding lifting the suspension.

Source: Legit.ng

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