Human Rights organization, Amnesty International (AI), has alleged that the Federal Government of Nigeria is attempting to punish social media users for expressing their opinion with the introduction of the social media bill.
Making these allegations in a tweet on Sunday, AI held that the move by the Federal Government to regulate social media is an alarming escalation in the government’s attempt to punish social media users.
“Social media regulation represents an alarming escalation in the Nigerian government’s attempts to censor and punish social media users for freely expressing their opinions,” a tweet by Amnesty International read.
It will be recalled that the outcome of the #EndSARS protest had intensified the call for the censorship of social media with the government arguing that the social media was used to spread fake news and instigate violence during the protest.
Equity News recalls that the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) sanctioned some broadcast media for using unverified social media content during their coverage of the #ENDARS protest.
Also, the Minister of Information and Culture Lai-Mohammed who re-emphasised the need for the regulation of social media over the weekend argued that nobody died at the Lekki tollgate as the massacre only happened on social media.
