Nigeria's Costly Twitter Ban: A 'Government Menace' in a bid to curb the 'Social Media Menace'

Nigeria's heavy-handed Twitter ban in 2021 provides a sobering case study of the unintended harms of knee-jerk social media regulation. 

The statistics speak for themselves - Nigeria lost an estimated $500 million to $1 billion over the nearly 7-month ban. Daily losses reached as high as $6 million, with the shutdown severely impacting small businesses dependent on Twitter for commerce and customer engagement. 

Given these stark economic impacts, Bola Tinubu would be wise to carefully weigh the wider costs of any proposals to regulate social media. While combating misinformation is a worthy aim, Nigeria's experience shows such efforts can easily go too far and incur harms that outweigh the benefits. 

Of course, Tinubu rightly points out social media's role in spreading falsehoods that may tear societies apart. Responsible reforms are needed to curb misinformation without unduly limiting free expression. But Nigeria's sweeping, ban on Twitter then, now known as X reveals the dangers of blunt policymaking uninformed by evidence and data.

There are measured, nuanced ways to address social media's societal risks without sabotaging economic livelihoods or stifling public discourse. As Tinubu notes, good governance requires truth and facts. The facts show Nigeria's Twitter ban was a failure of governance that should give pause to any proposing similar muscular restrictions without careful cost-benefit calculations.

Part of the Truth is that when people have lost faith in good governance and are in dire need of expressing their pains, platforms like social media can become places for unsavory expressions - real and perceived. Addressing the injustices that people complain about can be a better approach to regulating a space that gathers anger-fueled expressions.

Nigeria's losses speak louder than speculation. Tinubu would be prudent to shape social media reforms based not on knee-jerk reactions, but on sober analysis weighing all variables. With responsible, evidence-based policymaking, it is possible to regulate social media in ways that don't repeat Nigeria's disastrous errors.