TWITTER BAN IN NIGERIA: A SCANDAL TO DEMOCRACY
CHAPTER TWO
LITERATURE REVIEW
2.0 INTRODUCTION
Our focus in this chapter is to critically examine relevant literature that would assist in explaining the research problem and furthermore recognize the efforts of scholars who had previously contributed immensely to similar research. The chapter intends to deepen the understanding of the study and close the perceived gaps.
2.1 CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK
SOCIAL MEDIA
Social media are computer-mediated technologies that facilitate the creation and sharing of information, ideas, career interests and other forms of expression via virtual communities and networksUsers typically access social media services via web-based technologies on desktop computers, and laptops, or download services that offer social media functionality to their mobile devices (e.g., smartphones and tablet computers). When engaging with these services, users can create highly interactive platforms through which individuals, communities and organizations can share, cocreate, discuss, and modify user-generated content or pre-made content posted online. They introduce substantial and pervasive changes to communication between businesses, organizations, communities and individuals. Social media changes the way individuals and large organizations communicate. These changes are the focus of the emerging field of technoself studies. Social media differ from paper-based media (e.g., magazines and newspapers) or traditional electronic media such as TV broadcasting in many ways, including quality, reach, frequency, interactivity, usability, immediacy, and permanence. Social media operate in a dialogic transmission system (many sources to many receivers). This is in contrast to traditional media which operates under a monologic transmission model (one source to many receivers), such as a paper newspaper which is delivered to many subscribers or a radio station which broadcasts the same programs to an entire city. Some of the most popular social media websites are Baidu Tieba, Facebook (and its associated Facebook Messenger), Gab, Google+, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Reddit, Snapchat, Tumblr, Twitter, Viber, VK, WeChat, Weibo, What sApp, Wikia, and YouTube.
EVOLUTION OF SOCIAL MEDIA
Social media have evolved through Web 2.0, a term coined to describe a new wave of Internet innovation that enables users to publish and exchange content online Kaplan and Haenlein (cited in Eun 2011:6). Social media encompass a wide range of electronic forums, including blogs, microblogs (e.g., Twitter), social networking sites (e.g., Facebook), creative work-sharing sites (e.g., YouTube), business networking sites (e.g., LinkedIn), collaborative websites (e.g., Wikipedia), and virtual worlds (e.g., Second Life). Among these social media, social networks and microblogs are the most popular, accounting for 22.7% of all time spent online in the United States ACNielsen (cited in Eun 2011: 6). According to Dominick (2009:283) Web 2.0 is the idea of a second generation Internet that is highly participatory, allowing users to improve it as they use it. Social media contents are primarily written and published by their users and not owners or employees of the site. For instance, most adverts, videos and pictures on Facebook and Twitter are uploaded by visitors of the sites.
Jenkins et. al (cited in Stagno: 2) observe that Web 2.0 has been growing tremendously as it facilitates the production and dissemination of information, allows for the involvements in participatory culture to share individual expressions or creations and bring people with similar interests and goals to connect with each other on blogs, social networking sites and others. Few years ago, websites were quite static and passive. There was no much interaction going on as they were mostly corporate websites. The only way an individual could participate online was to send an email or form to the owners or web master of the website and hope that they would get back to him. This type of arrangement was called Web 1.0, referred to as “first generation Web where users generally consumed content. The audience went to web pages and looked at content provided by the website owner” Dominick (2009:283). But today, users have become producers which mean that they simultaneously consume and produce information (Bruns, cited in Stagno 2010:1). Igbinidu (2011:26) explains that the first exploitation of the potential of the social media especially to spread a candidates message, gain support and get the public engaged was through the 2008 presidential campaign by the then Senator Barack Obama who eventually became American president. The Obama campaign reached five million people on 15 different social media platforms. As at November 2008, Obama had approximately 2.3 million Facebook supporters; 115,000 Twitter followers and 50 million viewers of his YouTube videos. Facebook is a social network for connecting people with those around them,friends, family, coworkers, or simply others with similar interests. Facebook was created by Mark Zuckerberg in 2004 alongside his roommates and fellow computer science classmates Eduardo Saverin, Austin Maskovitz and Chris Hughes at Harvard University in the U.S (Locke cited in Nnaane 2011:15). Initially, Facebook membership was restricted to Harvard students but later extended to other colleges in Boston and Stanford University all in the U.S. “Since 2006, Facebook has expanded beyond Harvard to other 24 schools, corporations, businesses and any user across the world” (Dunay & Krueger 2010:27). Zuckerberg, cited in (Nweze, 2009) explains that advertising on Facebook is an opportunity for companies to reach their exact audience and connect real customers to their business. Facebook allow users to connect and share information in a variety of ways. Facebook allow users to post photos, videos and customize their profile content. Facebook has added a number of features over the past few years, including instant messaging/chat and apps (and their developer platform).Users communicate with one another through different methods, for instance, private messaging as well as writing on another user’s wall. Wall posts are visible to that user’s friends, but usually not to the general public. Users can also change their privacy settings to allow different users to see different parts of their profile, based on any existing relationships (the basic privacy settings are “only friends”, “friends of friends”, and “everyone”). Users can post notes that are visible to all of their friends. Users can also comment on or, more recently, “like” the posts of their friends, and conversations often occur within the comment sections among multiple people (Dunay & Krueger2010:27). Facebook pages are online location for businesses, organisations, public figures, entertainers, professionals of all types and individuals with the intention of marketing themselves to the Facebook community. Facebook Pages provide a powerful set of online tools for engaging with customers (or, as they are called in Facebook, fans). Every day, 3.5 million people become fans of a Facebook Page. According to eMetric’s February 2009 Facebook Usage Metrics Worldwide Study, although popular consumer brands enjoy large installed fan bases, smaller brands, business-to-business (B2B) companies, consultants, and personalities can also build a loyal following by using Facebook Page (Dunay & Krueger2010:27). He notes further that if Facebook were a country, it would be the sixth most populated nation in the world. This is because the site has grown to be perhaps the most popular all over the world with a user base of over 660 million (Amaefule 2011:20). The number of users continues to grow steadily. 25 Tyler (2010: para 3) explains that there are currently 1.7 billion Internet users worldwide, almost 57% of them have joined a social network, 66% of all Internet users visit social networks, Facebook is used more than 80 million hours daily and that close to 15million photos, wall posts, links, news, notes etc. are shared on Facebook every day. According to Idaresit (cited in Ofose, 2010) about 39.6 percent of all Internet traffic from Africa is from Nigeria and 29.8 percent of the population access the Internet. As at 2009, there were 30 million Nigerians on Facebook. Of this figure, 67% were males while 33% were females. These figures have changed since then. Lagos alone now has about two million subscribers to Facebook (Ogunbayo, 2011: 44). Supporting the above, Solaja and Odiaka (2010:32) state that “such a large population naturally offers a good basis for the adoption of the platforms for marketing purposes”. Facebook offers targeted communication initiative to select customers groups for product development as well as service enhancement and also be able to engage their customers and non-customers on platforms they are comfortable with while recovery real-time feedback on what they have to say about their brand, products and services (Wmworia (2010, February 11). In Nigeria, President Goodluck Jonathan boasts of the highest fan base with 97,000 Nigerian Facebook users. Both local and international brands would consider placing an ad on the presidents Facebook fan page as traffic to the site is unbelievably high Adebija (cited in Ofose 2010:4). Twitter was launched in 2006 and founded by Dorsey Jack, Biz Stone and Evan Williams as a free micro blogging social network that enables users to post short messages known as tweets that could be viewed by other subscribers, more commonly referred to as followers. Tweets of not more than 140 characters can be sent from and received by almost any kind of electronic equipment, including desktop computers, laptops, Black Berrys, iphones, and other mobile devices (Farhi 2009). According to D’Monte (cited in Nnaane 2011) Twitter has gained popularity worldwide and is estimated to have 200 million users, generating 65 million tweets a day and handling over 800,000 search queries a day. Message brevity, in contrast with lengthy e-mail marketing messages, has been hailed as an asset of microblogs; which 26 enables consumers to browse a large amount of updates efficiently (Zhao and Rosson, 2009). Aided by increases in smart phone sales and the continued rollout of Internet and mobile network infrastructure, Twitter is poised for even more growth (Wauters, 2010). Users broadcast messages to the masses, without visiting a particular person's profile to do so. By following other users, people automatically receive messages on their own Twitter home pages tweeted by those whom they are following. Even though some Twitter accounts are kept private, and some users require that they offer approval to people who wish to follow them, messages exchanged on this microblog are public by default, thus everyone can read and comment on a Twitter message (Kaplan and Haenlein, 2010). Chiang (2011) explains that visitors increased by 1,382, to 7 million in February 2009, up from 475,000 in February 2008, “making it the fastest growing social media site for that month” (McGiboney, 2009)
Twitter is an American microblogging and social networking service on which users post and interact with messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and retweet tweets, but unregistered users can only read them. Users access Twitter through its website interface or its mobile-device application software ("app"), though the service could also be accessed via SMS before April 2020.The service is provided by Twitter, Inc., a corporation based in San Francisco, California, and has more than 25 offices around the world. Tweets were originally restricted to 140 characters, but the limit was doubled to 280 for non-CJK languages in November 2017.Audio and video tweets remain limited to 140 seconds for most accounts (D'Monte, Leslie 2009).
Twitter was created by Jack Dorsey, Noah Glass, Biz Stone, and Evan Williams in March 2006 and launched in July of that year. By 2012, more than 100 million users posted 340 million tweets a day,and the service handled an average of 1.6 billion search queries per day.In 2013, it was one of the ten most-visited websites and has been described as "the SMS of the Internet". As of Q1 2019, Twitter had more than 330 million monthly active users.Twitter is a some-to-many microblogging service, given that the vast majority of tweets are written by a small minority of users( twitter search team 2011).
In April 2014, Twitter underwent a redesign that made the site resemble Facebook somewhat. On June 4, 2014, Twitter announced that it would acquire Namo Media, a technology firm specializing in "native advertising" for mobile devices. On June 19, 2014, Twitter announced that it had reached an undisclosed deal to buy SnappyTV, a service that helps edit and share video from television broadcasts.The company was helping broadcasters and rights holders to share video content both organically across social and via Twitter's Amplify program.In July 2014, Twitter announced that it intended to buy a young company called CardSpring for an undisclosed sum. CardSpring enabled retailers to offer online shoppers coupons that they could automatically sync to their credit cards in order to receive discounts when they shopped in physical stores. On July 31, 2014, Twitter announced that it had acquired a small password-security startup called Mitro. On October 29, 2014, Twitter announced a new partnership with IBM. The partnership was intended to help businesses use Twitter data to understand their customers, businesses and other trends.
On February 11, 2015, Twitter announced that it had acquired Niche, an advertising network for social media stars, founded by Rob Fishman and Darren Lachtman. The acquisition price was reportedly $50 million. On March 13, 2015, Twitter announced its acquisition of Periscope, an app that allows live streaming of video. In April 2015, the Twitter.com desktop homepage changed.
DEMOCRACY
The term “democracy”, as we will use it in this entry, refers very generally to a method of collective decision making characterized by a kind of equality among the participants at an essential stage of the decision-making process. Four aspects of this definition should be noted. First, democracy concerns collective decision making, by which we mean decisions that are made for groups and are meant to be binding on all the members of the group. Second, we intend for this definition to cover many different kinds of groups and decision-making procedures that may be called democratic. So there can be democracy in families, voluntary organizations, economic firms, as well as states and transnational and global organizations. The definition is also consistent with different electoral systems, for example first-past-the-post voting and proportional representation. Third, the definition is not intended to carry any normative weight. It is compatible with this definition of democracy that it is not desirable to have democracy in some particular context. So the definition of democracy does not settle any normative questions. Fourth, the equality required by the definition of democracy may be more or less deep. It may be the mere formal equality of one-person one-vote in an election for representatives to a parliament where there is competition among candidates for the position. Or it may be more robust, including substantive equality in the processes of deliberation and coalition building leading up to the vote. “Democracy” may refer to any of these political arrangements. It may involve direct referenda of the members of a society in deciding on the laws and policies of the society or it may involve the participation of those members in selecting representatives to make the decisions.
Asettleddefinitionofdemocracyisperhapsnone-existentasdemocracyappearstoconnoteaclassicexampleofan‘essentiallycontested’concept(Gallie,1956). The International IDEA (2005) argued that ‘there isnot now, nor is there likely to be, a final consensus on itsdefinitionorfullcontent’.Perhapsitmaybemoreconvenient therefore to start off this paper by groping intowhattheconceptof“democracy”isallabout.InthewordsofWistonChurchillintheHouseofCommon(1947)“democracyistheworstformofgovernmentexcept all those forms that have been tried from time totime”.GiovaniSartoriinhisDemocraticTheoryalsoasserts that – democracy is more complex than any otherpoliticalform.
Oneofthemostdifficultquestionstoanswersatisfactorily is: What is democracy? To Pickles (1971),linguistically, the word simply means government by thepeople.However, this definition leaves a great manyproblemsunsolved.Noknownpoliticalsystematanytime, whether democratic or not, has ever provided for allthe people even to elect the government, much less toexercisegovernmental powers.
In different times and countries, citizenship has beenrestricted on a number of grounds. Age, sex, property,social status and sometimes colour and religion, have allat one time or another barred certain people from theenjoyment of political rights enjoyed by others. At times,the denial or restriction may be logical and common –senseones,forinstance,thedenialofvotetochildrenand the insane on the ground that they are incapable oftaking responsible decisions. But many restrictions seemtohavebeenbasedonprejudiceswhichthepoliticalclimate of the time, was taken for granted as self-evidenttruths.
However the notion of democracy propagated by theInternational IDEA (2005) appears commendable. Whileacknowledgingthesignificantandseriousdebateondemocracy and the seeming futility of a definition that canend all definitions on the concept, the body concentratedon the area of significant consensus especially the ‘ideathat democracy is a form of governance based on somedegreeofpopularsovereigntyandcollectivedecisionmaking’, which remains largely uncontested (InternationalIDEA,2005:20).Itadvocatedatripartitedefinitionalstatusfordemocracyalongthethindemarcationsofprocedure, liberalism, and the social rights. According tothem,’proceduraldefinitions ofdemocracyidentifytheminimumrequirementsforupholdingparticipatorycompetitive politics’[while] liberal definitions include thefullprotectionofcivil,political,propertyandminorityrights,whicharemeanttocurbthepossiblenegativeconsequencesofdemocraticgovernancebasedonmajorityruleonly[and]socialdefinitionsincludeadditionalprotectionsforeconomicandsocialrights,which are seen as essential for the full participation ofcitizensinthecollectivedecisionsthatmayaffecttheirlive (International IDEA, 2005). Reconciling these threedefinitionsrevealedthatdemocracyessentiallymeansthe notion of peaceful competitive political arrangementswithsomeformofpopularparticipation,withintheatmosphereofpromotionandprotectionoflivesandpropertyandrightsofindividualsandgroupsinthepolity.
TWITTER BAN: A SCANDAL TO DEMOCRACY
Democracy is a system of government in which power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or through freely elected representatives. However, In a moment of anger and lack of critical reflection unbecoming of a democratically elected government, and with complete disregard to our rights, the Buhari Administration on June 4 announced an indefinite ban on the operations of “the microblogging and social networking service, Twitter in Nigeria.”
Segun Adeyemi, Special Assistant To The President (Media) in the office of the Minister of Information and Culture, Abuja, claimed in a terse press release that the Minister, Lai Mohammed, attributed the ban to: “The persistent use of the platform for activities that are capable of undermining Nigeria’s corporate existence”.
Mr Adeyemi stated further that the “Federal Government has also directed the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) to immediately commence the process of licensing all OTT and social media operations in Nigeria.
Taking a cue from the Information and Culture Minister, the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, also threatened that Nigerians who defy the Twitter ban would be prosecuted.
The argument advanced in Adeyemi’s press release notwithstanding, Nigerians are not oblivious of the real reason why the rash decision was taken – the taking down of President Muhammadu Buhari’s Twitter handle for tweeting what was interpreted as a threat of genocide or bloody suppression against a section of the Nigerian populace.The president had tweeted: “Many of those misbehaving today are too young to be aware of the destruction and loss of lives that occurred during the Nigerian Civil War. Those of us in the fields for 30 months, who went through the war, will treat them in the language they understand.”
It is common knowledge that social media service providers like Twitter, Facebook, WhatsApp, among others, have well defined and widely disseminated industry standards that frown at the use of words and expressions that convey hateful messages or thoughts. Thus, with one of his tweets deleted, President Buhari has company in former President of the United States, Donald Trump, who received a similar knock when he repeatedly tweeted venomous messages against American citizens opposed to his indecorous approach to addressing governance and political issues.
Of a poetic irony is the fact that one issue over which the Buhari Administration has repeatedly waxed lyrical is that of hate speech; so much that the National Assembly, controlled by his All Progressives Peoples Congress (APC), has introduced a bill to establish the National Hate Speech Commission and another one to regulate the social media. Both bills have rightly been opposed by Nigerians who feared that they would serve as witch-hunt apparatuses against those who exercise the right of dissent. Events around the Twitter ban have confirmed the fear of the civil society, media outlets and groups, professional bodies, etc., in this regard, hence condemning twitter ban on a fundamental grounds.
A lawyer and human rights crusader, Inibehe Effiong(premium times 2021), describes Twitter and other social media platforms as “veritable tools for civic engagement”. “It gives the ordinary people a voice to air their grievances and bring to public attention, crisis and injustice that has been done to them and seek both institutional and public support,” the activist says, noting that so many citizens have got redress for injustice done to them “on account of the polarization of such cases on Twitter.” Mr Effiong, who has sued the federal government over the ban, says the ban on micro-blogging site limits “access to (justice)” and in a way, “shrinks the civic space.” “People can no longer organize effectively as they are supposed to,” he said (premium times 2021).
In a an editorial by PREMUIM TIMES (2021), the describedtwitter-ban in Nigeria as a real risk to our democracy on five notions thus:
First, the ban constitutes a gross abuse of office, as it elevates the personal interest of the President above that of the country and her citizens. The President is indeed NOT the state and disagreements over the personal terms he voluntarily entered with Twitter should not be allowed to threaten the public and national interest. Moreover, we are not aware of any law of the federation that allows the President or a Minister to whimsically deny Nigerians access to social media services of their choice.
Secondly, the ban is a grave violation of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, which the trio of the President, the Minister of Information and the Minister of Justice swore to uphold. By infringing citizens’ fundamental right to the freedom of expression and association, it violates section 39 of the Constitution, while undermining the social and economic rights guaranteed Nigerian citizens by Chapter 11 of the Constitution.
Thirdly, the ban is a violation of and assault on a number of international, continental and regional instruments that Nigeria willingly subscribes to. Indeed, the ban clearly falls below their expectations of the realm of the rights and freedom that citizens should freely enjoy. Among these are the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights and the Universal Declaration of Peoples and Human Rights. Pursuant to the provisions of the African Charter, Resolution 362 of 2016 of the African Commission on Human and Peoples Rights expressed concern at the practice by State Parties to the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights, of “interrupting or limiting access to telecommunication services such as the Internet, social media and messaging services.” In specific terms, the African Commission adopted the Declaration of Principles on Freedom of Expression and Access to Information in Africa, Principle 38 (1) and (2) of which states that, “States shall not interfere with the right of individuals to seek, receive and impart information through any means of communication and digital technologies, through measures such as the removal, blocking or filtering of content, unless such interference is justifiable and compatible with international human rights law and standards.” And that “States shall not engage in or condone any disruption of access to the internet and other digital technologies for segments of the public or an entire population.”
The UN Human Rights Council also has a subsisting resolution of July 2018 that demands the promotion, protection and enjoyment of human rights on the Internet.
Fourthly, the ban constitutes an unwarranted attack on the corporate, business and professional interests of organization and individuals legitimately managing their affairs on Twitter, including but not limited to the media, entrepreneurs, researchers, educational institutions, NGOs and CCSOs. As at the third quarter of 2020, Twitter accounted for 61.4 per cent of Internet users in Nigeria, coming after WhatsApp and Facebook messenger, according to ‘Statista’, while ‘Quora’ estimates the number to be about seven million. Even if the number of users is considerably less, it still does not justify a ban that is jeopardizing the means of business and social communication of citizens.
Fifthly, the ban further underscores the investor community’s growing concern over the unpredictability of the domestic policy environment. The consequences of a subsequent attenuation of investment for an economy whose recovery from the initial stages of the pandemic has been described as “fragile” are better imagined.
2.2 THEORITICAL FRAMEWORK
For the purpose of this study, normative democracy theory and agenda setting theory will be considered.
Normative Democracy Theory
Normative democratic theories like all normative theories of politics assume that people are able to and may want to act in a different way than they usually do. Normative democratic theory as propounded by Dewey (1958) deals with the moral foundations of democracy and democratic institutions, as well as the moral duties of democratic representatives and citizens. It is distinct from descriptive and explanatory democratic theory, which aim to describe and explain how democracy and democratic institutions function. Normative democracy theory aims to provide an account of when and why democracy is morally desirable as well as moral principles for guiding the design of democratic institutions and the actions of citizens and representatives. Of course, normative democratic theory is inherently interdisciplinary and must draw on the results of political science, sociology, psychology, and economics in order to give concrete moral guidance.
Agenda setting theory
Agenda-setting describes the "ability (of the news media) to influence the importance placed on the topics of the public agenda". The study of agenda-setting describes the way media attempts to influence viewers, and establish a hierarchy of news prevalence.Nations with more political power receive higher media exposure. The agenda-setting by media is driven by the media's bias on things such as politics, economy and culture, etc.The evolution of agenda-setting and laissez-faire components of communication research encouraged a fast pace growth and expansion of these perspectives. Agenda-setting has phases that need to be in a specific order in order for it to succeed.
The history of study of agenda-setting can be traced to the first chapter of Walter Lippmann's 1922 book, Public Opinion.In that chapter, "The World Outside And The Pictures In Our Heads", Lippmann argues that the mass media are the principal connection between events in the world and the images in the minds of the public. Without using the term "agenda-setting", Walter Lippmann was writing about what we today would call "agenda-setting". Following Lippmann's 1922 book, Bernard Cohen observed (in 1963) that the press "may not be successful much of the time in telling people what to think, but it is stunningly successful in telling its readers what to think about. The world will look different to different people," Cohen continues, "depending on the map that is drawn for them by writers, editors, and publishers of the paper they read." As early as the 1960s, Cohen had expressed the idea that later led to formalization of agenda-setting theory by McCombs and Shaw. The stories with the strongest agenda setting influence tend to be those that involve public rancour, conflict, terrorism, crime and drug issues within the nation States.
Therefore, the relevance of the two theories to the discuss explains that social media information about actions taken by a democratic elected government poll strongest attention of the public audience including government of nation states and civic societies hence it will be unconstitutional for the people not to be involved in decision making process and reaching a conclusion without considerations of how those decisions will affect them