Twitter Banned in Nigeria after President’s tweet removed

 

The Nigerian government has said it will ban Twitter after the social media platform deleted a controversial tweet by the country’s president. But the time that the ban will start has not been shared with the public, with the announcement made on Twitter itself.

 Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari posted a tweet on Tuesday which threatened suspected separatist militants in the southeast part of the country. Twitter deleted the post the day after, saying it was abusive.

 The Nigerian Government announced the ban of the website on Friday. Twitter said it was investigating the banning of the platform in Nigeria.

 The country’s information minister said the platform was banned because it was being used “for activities that are capable of undermining Nigeria’s corporate existence”. He also said, “the mission of Twitter in Nigeria is very suspicious”, and that the site hadn’t taken any notice of past controversial tweets.

Although the ban was announced on Friday, users said they were still able to get on the site that day. Other people said they would use a virtual private network to get past any ban. A VPN allows people to get around local blocks in websites by accessing the internet through a device in another part of the world.