Federal Government has suspended, indefinitely, the operations microblogging and social networking service, Twitter, in Nigeria.
The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, in a statement in Abuja on Friday on the Twitter handle of the Ministry of Information and Culture said the platform was being used for activities “capable of undermining Nigeria’s corporate existence”.
The Minister said Federal Government has also directed the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) to commence the process of licensing all OTT and social media operations in Nigeria.
OTT stands for over-the-top, initially named in reference to devices that go “over” a cable box to give the user access to TV content. In OTT channels, content is delivered via an internet connection rather than through a traditional cable/broadcast provider, like Netflix and Amazon’s Prime video, popular in Nigeria.
According to The Cable Index, Twitter is the 6th most used social media platform in the country, at 61.4 percent.
WhatsAPP has a 93 percent usage, followed by Facebook at 86.2 percent and Youtube at 81.6 percent.
Instagram: 73.1percent; Facebook Messenger: 67.2 percent; Twitter: 61.4 percent and Telegram: 56.3 percent.
RN