Twitter Ban Lifted: Nigeria loss 1.5 billion dollar
Twitter shutdown in Nigeria cost the country about 1.5 billion US dollar (675 billion Naira)
Federal government of Nigeria on Wednesday 12 January, 2022 lifted the ban on Twitter operation in the country after a 222-days (Seven months) ban by the government.
Nigeria is the most affected country in Africa and second in the world, next to Myanma in the social media shutdown.
Myanma lost about 2.8 billion dollars, according to the new global study on the economic cost of deliberate internet shutdown.
African countries affected by internet shutdown
Ethiopia is the second-most affected countries in Africa with a total loss of $164.5 million, Sudan follow with $151.6 and Uganda with $109.7 million.
More than half of the 21 countries that experienced major shutdown were in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Other countries from the region on the list include;
Burkina Faso – $35.9 million
Eswatini – $2.9 million
Republic of Congo – $2.5 million
Zambia – $1.8 million
Chad – $1.6 million
Senegal – $323,953
South Sudan – $269,987.
Last year, sub-Sahara Africa loss $1.9 billion to intentional social media and internet shutdown by government.
The intentional shutdown of internet leads to global economic loss $5.45 billion.
Reasons why government shutdown or regulate internet
According to report by UK based digital privacy and security research group Top10VPN.
More than half of these intentional internet shutdown is part of government effort to manage protests and elections.
Other reasons include information control during conflict, elections and coups.
In Uganda, they restricted online services seriously before the 14 January 2021 elections.
This happens after the government order telecom companies to block access to social media platforms as a “revenge”.
Globally, research shows that three out of four reasons why government shutdown internet relates to human rights abuses, according to report by Top10VPN.
Twitter Ban Lifted: Nigeria loss 1.5 billion dollar
Twitter shutdown in Nigeria cost the country about 1.5 billion US dollar (675 billion Naira).
