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Amnesty Worldwide in Nigeria has warned that an try by the Nigerian authorities to control use of social media may hamper freedom of expression.
The warning got here after Femi Gbajamiala, the chief of workers to President Bola Tinuubu, mentioned on Friday that “social media is a menace” and ought to be regulated.
“The social media regulation regulation keenly pushed by Nigerian politicians is ready to be topic to obscure and broad interpretations and can impose extremely harsh punishments merely for criticising the authorities,” said Amnesty Worldwide Nigeria in an announcement.
Amnesty famous that the social media ‘regulation’ would pose a risk to important opinion, satire, public dialogue and political commentary.
It added that the regulation may very well be “simply abused” to punish critics of presidency insurance policies and actions, saying that the federal government can arbitrarily shut down the web and restrict entry to social media.
“Nigeria’s social media regulation? Social media customers will likely be punished for freely expressing their opinions. The federal government can arbitrarily shut down the web and restrict entry to social media. Criticising authorities will likely be punishable with penalties of as much as three years in jail.” it added.
Nigeria’s authorities launched the “Safety from Web Falsehood and Manipulation Invoice 2019,” often known as the Social Media Invoice, to the Senate for debate in November 2019.
The invoice sought to criminalise using social media to hawk false or malicious info. It might have given the authorities arbitrary powers to close down elements of the Web and restrict entry to social media.
In June 2021, the Authorities of Nigeria suspended, indefinitely, the operations of the social networking service Twitter for shut to 6 months till January 2022.
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