Federal Government seeks law to regulate online media
The Federal Government says Twitter and its founder, Jack Dorsey, are vicariously liable for the losses the country suffered during the EndSARS protest.
The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, stated this on Tuesday, June 15, when he featured on “Politics Nationwide,” a Radio Nigeria call-in programme monitored by the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja.
Mohammed alleged that Dorsey raised funds through Bitcoins to sponsor the EndSARS protest while his platform, Twitter, was used to fuel the crisis. He said when he made the allegations earlier, Nigerians did not take him serious until an online media outfit carried out investigation and fact checking.
The minister said the online publication confirmed that Dorsey retweeted some of the posts by some of the coalitions supporting the EndSARS protest. He said it was also confirmed that the Twitter founder launched a fund raising asking people to donate via Bitcoins. Adding that Dorsey further launched Emoji to make the EndSARS protest visible on the microblogging site.
The minister said it was unfair to conclude that the operation of Twitter was suspended indefinitely because it deleted President Muhammadu Buhari’s message. He said the government was unambiguous that the action was taken because the platform was being used to promote the views of those who wanted to destabilise the country.
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“Twitter has become a platform of choice for a particular separatist promoter. The promoter consistently used the platform to direct his loyalists to kill Nigerian soldiers and policemen, run down INEC offices and destroy all symbols of Nigeria’s sovereignty.
Every attempt to persuade Twitter to deny its platform to this separatist leader was not taken serious,” he said.
The minister said the Federal Government has no apology to offer to those unhappy over the suspension of Twitter’s operations in the country. He said a country must exist in peace before people could exercise freedom of speech and fight for a source of livelihood.
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