According to an investigation by SaharaReporters, the Nigerian government told American social networking sites Twitter and Instagram to take down pornographic content within 24 hours.
However, Twitter and Instagram did not follow this order.
On Monday, June 13, the government of Nigeria put out a code of conduct for all online platforms in Nigeria, including social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and TikTok.
The government of Muhammadu Buhari told users that if they posted any non-consensual content that shows partial or full nudity, sexual acts, deep fake, or revenge porn, they had to take it down, disable it, or block access to it within 24 hours.
The order was in the Code of Practice for Interactive Computer Service Platforms/Internet Intermediaries, which was just released (online platforms).
According to the document, these online platforms must “act quickly to remove, disable, or block access to non-consensual content that exposes a person’s private areas, full or partial nudity, sexual act, or revenge porn, where such content is meant to harass, discredit, or intimidate an individual.”
“Within 24 hours of receiving the complaint, the platform must remove the content and let the person know.”
The Code of Practice also tells these sites to take down any illegal content if a user or an authorized government agency tells them to do so.
But SaharaReporters’ research showed that Nigerian users can still see pornographic content on Twitter and Instagram six days (144 hours) after this order.
Many Nigerian Twitter users still post about being naked.
Even though the Nigerian government told people not to make pornographic posts, many of these posts were still up and running.
In the same way, SaharaReporters’ research showed that Nigerian users can still see pornographic content on Instagram, but the newspaper didn’t post the links because they didn’t want to promote pornography.
