[throwaway6250]

Kudos to Nigeria. The government, and governmental policies of any country are for their citizens to decide, not for Silicon Valley elites to dictate. Any other time period elites trying to control other countries political affairs would be called for what it is -- imperialism.

[jakelazaroff]

Are the citizens deciding this, or is their government deciding for them? It seems like a lot of people are trying to circumvent the ban.

[throwaway6250]

Nigeria is a (albeit flawed) democratic government with elections which the current President won in 2019. Jack Dorsey personally donated to protesters. Twitter also created an emoticon to support them.[1] Then Twitter decides to remove the sitting President's post.

We all saw how well the "Arab Spring" went. We don't need Big Tech to go and create more failed states. Strong democracy and good government never work being built top down.

[1] https://africa.businessinsider.com/local/lifestyle/twitter-u...

[jakelazaroff]

The fact that Nigeria is a democracy doesn’t mean much on its own. In the US, for example, conservative politicians consistently oppose issues such as abortion, gun control and healthcare even though a healthy majority of the population support them. Another commenter alleges that the current Nigerian government is very unpopular, which doesn’t paint this decision in a great light.

Also: it’s misleading to suggest Jack Dorsey or Twitter supported protests against the government. His donation and the hashtag were for #EndSARS, which is an anti–police brutality movement.

[throwaway6250]

Doesn't the fact that these conservative politicians constantly get elected belie your statement that they are supported by a majority of the population? Trump opposed them all and yet won in 2016 and had a decent showing in 2020.

It used to be that everyone supported democracy -- the rural, the poor, the uneducated, along with urban, rich and educated all getting a say in their government. Not it seems some factions in the left have sold out to corporatocracy in a bid to fast track their favorite policies.

I don't think this is going to end well.

[jakelazaroff]

There are a lot of reasons that elected politicians don’t support the positions of most voters, one being that turnout of the voting-age population in the US tends to be just over 50% (with 2020 being an outlier). But I think we’re getting too deep into the analogy here. The point is that a democratically elected government is absolutely capable of making decisions opposed by a majority of its citizens.

[runarberg]

In the USA it is well known that popular opinion has little effect on policy. The last time a popular legislation got through was the affordable care act more then 10 years ago, and even that was only a half step in the direction that people wanted (universal healthcare).

Knowing that there is little incentive for USA voters to actually vote for a candidate based on policy. Instead you pick the person you hate less.

[totalZero]

The current president already executed a coup d'etat against a democratic government once in the 1980s. How many of those has Jack Dorsey done?

[filleduchaos]

A question for the ages.

It is honestly so frustrating seeing people talk about situations they obviously know nothing about. Imagine claiming to be arguing in support of freedom and democracy via applauding a man that literally deposed a civilian government and installed himself as a military dictator while he was in the army!

People are so preoccupied with the speck of "censorship" in a private company's eye that they completely neglect the log of actual, murderously violent authoritarianism in the eye of the side they're supporting.

I'm not even sure why I bother to participate in conversations about Nigeria outside of Nigerian spaces.

[totalZero]

Twitter has taken even greater steps against the same kind of violent messaging in the US itself. How does that fit into your theory about imperialism?

[throwaway6250]

Twitter controlling political discourse in America is not imperialism, just corporatocracy. If Americans would like to live under such a system, so be it. Just keep your frankensteins out of our country please.

[rvz]

It's like as if the users want the tech elite to be the arbiters of their truth, handling 'accidental' banning of users who disagree and allowing the free-for-all manipulation of content that it only approves of (Even when it approves of lies) whilst also claiming to stopping 'disinformation' as so called 'mOdErATioN' whilst breaking their own rules.

These companies will never change and neither are your friends or are on your side.

They are on the side of profit.