Will the Buhari regime ban Facebook too?

There has been growing concern that the Buhari regime may also ban Facebook as the platform joined Twitter in deleting the president’s civil war speech.

You will recall that the Nigerian government announced on Friday it was suspending Twitter’s operations in the country. The order came after Twitter deleted a tweet by Buhari for breaching the site’s rules.

According to The Daily Beast, Nigeria President Muhammad Buhari ordered the suspension of Twitter in the country because he was “angry” that Facebook also joined the latter to take down his controversial post on insecurity.

“Anger” is the word used by those close to the Nigerian president in describing how the leader felt on Friday when his aides informed him that Facebook had followed Twitter by deleting a post he made on both platforms.

Although the Presidency said the tweet’s removal was “disappointing”, insisted that it was not the only reason for the “temporary” suspension.

“There has been a litany of problems with the social media platform in Nigeria, where misinformation and fake news spread through it have had real-world violent consequences,” Buhari spokesman Garba Shehu said.

According to The American news publication, the president planned to shut down Facebook in the country as well, but his aides advised against it to not seem that it was in reaction to the deleted posts.

“He was furious and wanted to deal with both Twitter and Facebook. The action [the social media companies] took was embarrassing to the president,” the media outlet quoted the official in the president’s office to have said.

“The action was taken by Facebook ultimately triggered the ban on Twitter even though Facebook wasn’t affected, things could change in the near future,” another official was quoted to have said.