Internet Censorship in Nigeria: Liberalisation or Regulation?

Chuma Akana's writes about whether there should be internet regulation in Nigeria, or liberalisation. He cites the creation of a safer environment for our children, as one of the advantages of internet regulation. He also discusses China's internet censor

"INTERNET ACCEPTANCE HAS TRANSCENDED THE URBAN COMMUNITIES, AND IT IS NOT UNUSUAL TO FIND UNFETTERED INTERNET SERVICE IN THE RURAL AREAS. WITH APPLICATIONS BEING DEVELOPED TO EASE THE PLIGHT OF FARMERS AND THEIR ACCESS TO INPUTS, HIGH DEMAND FOR SMARTPHONES AND IN-DEPTH DIGITAL AWARENESS BY THE MILLENNIALS, THE INTERNET AGE, HAS COME TO STAY"

According the Forbes, the internet of things, is becoming increasingly a growing phenomenon in our daily lives, broadband internet is becoming more widely available, the cost of connecting is decreasing, more devices are being created with wi-fi capabilities, technology cost is going down, and smartphone penetration is sky rocketing. As at August 2014, reports released by the Nigerian Communications Commission provided that the Nigerian market internet penetration was at 93 million users (now about 97 million), and the numbers are increasing rapidly.

Internet acceptance has transcended the urban communities, and it is not unusual to find unfettered internet service in the rural areas. With applications being developed to ease the plight of farmers and their access to inputs, high demand for smartphones and in-depth digital awareness by the millennials, the internet age, has come to stay.

Such areas like data privacy and content management on the internet, are gradually gaining attention, though much remains to be desired from the Nigerian internet space. Evident in our social media stratosphere is the principle of freedom of speech, largely opinionated views and the strong voices without faces.

In other jurisdictions, this has led government to pay critical attention to what is being peddled on their internet. Recent events have led governments to direct regulation and filtering of the internet in their countries. Through 2010, the OpenNet Initiative had documented Internet filtering by governments worldwide. China was the year’s worst abuser of internet freedom. As President Xi Jinping made “cyber sovereignty” one of the priorities of his tenure as leader of the Chinese Communist Party, internet users endured crackdowns on “rumours,” greater enforcement of rules against anonymity, and disruptions to the circumvention tools that are commonly used to bypass censorship. Though not entirely new, these measures were implemented with unprecedented intensity. Veteran human rights defenders were jailed for online expression, including lawyer Pu Zhiqiang, who faces charges of “picking quarrels” in connection with 28 social media posts, and 70-year-old journalist Gao Yu, who was sentenced to seven years in prison for sending “state secrets” to a foreign website.

This is not far fetched from the incident in Nigeria, where a blogger, was alleged to have posted inappropriate and unverified facts in an unconfirmed story. Most Nigerians will also agree that social media has become an avenue for anonymous bashing of the efforts of the government or any opposition. Internet filtering or regulation may be a way to avoid these excesses.

In China, there is an extant policy on internet censorship, and the Chinese government intends to regulate and continue censoring social networking sites on the mainland for the foreseeable future. Nine state-run operators maintain China’s gateways to the global internet, giving authorities the ability to cut off crossborder information requests. All service providers must subscribe via the gateway operators under MIIT oversight. For instance, Facebook was blocked following the July, 2009 Ürümqi riots, because Xinjiang independence activists were using Facebook as part of their communications network.

This block led to the rise of indigenous websites in China, that have filled the gap created by Facebook, afforded China to maintain its rich heritage, created jobs for many persons and promoted innovation and creativity amongst the Chinese. Another issue that arises here is the amount of tax paid by these online multinationals, compared to the amount of advertising revenue which they generate from the Nigerian advertisers on their website.

Today, there are indigenous websites in competition with Facebook, while google may also have hard time competing with the search engine created by the Ikhianosims whizkids‘ ‘crocodile’.

Amongst the support for Internet regulation, is that it creates a safer environment for children, blocking inappropriate material that they may come across by accident.

It also increases privacy, by blocking sites which ask for personal details. Hackers can find these details by breaking into your account. It discourages piracy, blocking sites where software/media can be downloaded for free and illegally, and it systematically reduces the amount of cybercrime, making it cumbersome for people to perpetrate crime through the internet.

Generally, activists, advocacy groups, and journalists have pushed back against deteriorating conditions for global internet freedom. In India, legal petitions against Section 66A of the Information Technology (IT) Act—a restrictive provision that was used to criminalise online speech, particularly on social media—succeeded when the Supreme Court declared the provision unconstitutional in March 2015, and in the United States, the June 2015 passage of the USA Freedom Act marked a significant step toward surveillance reform after nearly two years of debate over NSA practices.

Whether filtering or the regulation for the Nigerian internet space, it is imperative to ensure that the authorities have a modicum of control, and provide a gateway which ensures content management and promotion of indigenisation thereby creating jobs and encouraging innovation.