Democracy, Dictatorship And Digital Censorship In Africa

NEW DELHI: Is the Nigerian government’s twitter ban an illustration of how even a democracy can use dictatorial tendencies, doesn’t big-tech and social media have to follow national laws, what’s the effect on common citizens and how are they reacting? On ‘The Gist’, Torinmo Salau, a Lagos based writer and journalist, discusses these issues, why Twitter chose to base its Africa headquarters in Ghana and not in the continent’s most populous and largest economy-Nigeria, how companies play by the government’s rules, investment in Nigeria with its current business climate and rising insecurity and the effect of internet shutdowns, censorship, crackdowns and taxes on tech giants and micro-blogging sites. In conversation with StratNews Global Associate Editor Amitabh P. Revi, she also analyses fake news on social media and how platforms like Twitter, seen as potentially deeply democratic, are turning into enablers for the agendas of authoritarian leaders.