It’s no news that recently, the Nigerian government sent out an order which prohibited users from accessing their Twitter accounts.
Aside from a clear violation of human rights, there is a significant impact on most tech communities that use Twitter as their main channel for reaching out to their users. Frankly, it sucks!
The “Twitter ban” has put most community managers / online users on edge, the government can wake up one day and decide to shut down social media for good without any sanctions. So how does a community manager overcome such a hurdle now that most users don’t have access to Twitter or any other social media channel the government sees as a threat?
Here are a few suggestions :
(1)Get a VPN (paid ), most of the target audience in Nigeria have migrated to using a VPN, so hop on the bandwagon!
(2)Find an alternative channel of communication, experiment with different social media platforms, and see which works for your company.
(3) Keep your audience updated by sending newsletters and weekly emails.
It is heartbreaking that this has happened as most tech communities in Nigeria had to adjust their means of communication due to these restrictions imposed by the government.
With the emergence of open-source channels, issues like this will be a thing of the past, as autonomy and free speech are vices that every community needs especially in growing online communities in Nigeria.
This won’t be the first time that censorship has been placed on social media as the recent social media bill brought up by the Senate House in Nigeria suggests that the country is heading to a dystopian system of government where all actions are monitored by a figurehead closely watching the screen.
