The Nigerian social media space has been aghast since the decision of the Federal Government to suspend Twitter usage in the country, as announced on Friday by the Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed.
The decision comes after Twitter deleted a tweet by Muhammadu Buhari, in which the President evoked the bloody Nigerian Civil War of 1967–1970 and threatened to mete out violence to those causing insurrection in the country.
In this piece, The PUNCH has teased together a list of countries in which Twitter has either been suspended or banned.
• China
Twitter is officially blocked in China, however, many Chinese people find ways around the embargo in order to use the platform.
Major Chinese companies and national media, such as Huawei and CCTV, use Twitter through a government-approved Virtual Private Network.
Also, many Chinese diplomats, embassies and consulates run their accounts on Twitter.
• Egypt
Twitter was inaccessible in Egypt on January 25, 2011 during the 2011 Egyptian protests, an incident blamed on the government of Egypt by some news reports.
As of January 26, Twitter was still confirming that the service was blocked in Egypt. On January 27, various reports claimed that access to the entire internet from within Egypt had been shut down.
On February 2, 2011, connectivity was re-established by the four main Egyptian service providers. A week later, the heavy filtering that occurred at the height of the revolution had ended.
• Uganda
Uganda, under President Yoweri Museveni, blocked access to social media platforms, including Twitter, just two days before its January 14 presidential and parliamentary elections.
In a January 12 letter, the Uganda Communications Commission ordered internet service providers in the country to “immediately suspend any access and use” of all messaging apps and social media platforms until further notice.
• Iran
During the 2009 Iranian presidential election, the Iranian government blocked Twitter due to fear of protests being organised through the platform. In September 2013, the blocking of both Twitter and Facebook was briefly lifted without notice due to a technical error, however, within a day the sites were blocked again.
• North Korea
In April 2016, North Korea started to block Twitter. Anyone who tries to access it without special permission from the North Korean government, including foreign visitors and residents, is subject to punishment.
• Turkey
On March 21, 2014, access to Twitter in Turkey was temporarily blocked, after a court order. This followed earlier remarks by Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan who vowed to “wipe out Twitter” following damaging allegations of corruption in his inner circle.
However, on March 27, 2014, Istanbul Anatolia 18th Criminal Court of Peace suspended the above-mentioned court order.
Twitter reports that the government of Turkey accounts for more than 52% of all content removal requests worldwide.
• Turkmenistan
As of 2018, foreign news and opposition websites are blocked in Turkmenistan, and international social networks such as Twitter are usually inaccessible.
