Twitter Nigeria: Users Struggle To Access Site After Government Suspension - BBC

<blockquote>Users struggle to access site after government suspension.<br><br><b>Access to Twitter through Nigeria's main phone providers has been blocked, according to reports from Lagos and the capital, Abuja.</b><br><br>It is still accessible on some wi-fi networks.<br><br>This comes after the government said it was suspending Twitter operations in the country &quot;indefinitely&quot;.<br><br><b>The ban was due to &quot;the persistent use of the platform for activities... capable of undermining Nigeria's corporate existence&quot;, a statement said.</b><br><br>Twitter said Friday's announcement from Information Minister Lai Mohammed was &quot;deeply concerning&quot;.<br><br><b>By Saturday morning, BBC reporters in Lagos and Abuja said they were unable to connect to Twitter through two of the countries largest phone networks: MTN and Airtel. Others have also been affected.</b><br><br>Access was still possible through some wi-fi providers, but this is not a common way to connect to the internet in Nigeria.<br><br>Search terms such as &quot;VPN&quot; were popular overnight, according to the search tracking site Trendsmap.<br><br>A VPN - or Virtual Private Network - connection makes it appear as if the user is accessing the internet from another country, and has been a way to get round similar bans in other countries.<br><br>Removal of Buhari tweet<br>The move by the government came just days after a tweet by President Muhammadu Buhari was removed for breaching the site's rules, though no mention of this was made in its statement.<br><br><b>Mr Mohammed has previously criticised the US social media giant's decision to take it down, calling it &quot;double standards&quot;.</b><br><br>The tweet sent by Mr Buhari on 1 June referred to the 1967-70 Nigerian Civil War and to treating &quot;those misbehaving today&quot; in &quot;the language they will understand&quot;.<br><br>A Twitter spokesperson said at the time that the post &quot;was in violation of the Twitter Rules&quot;.<br><br>And in a statement on Friday, the company - which in April announced its new African headquarters would be based in neighbouring Ghana - said it was &quot;investigating and will provide updates when we know more&quot; about the Nigerian ban.<br><br>The government gave no details on how the ban would work in practice, or any explanation of how Twitter had undermined Nigeria's corporate existence.</blockquote><br><a rel=ugc href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-57363779">https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-57363779</a>
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