United States-based social networking sites, Twitter and Instagram, have defied the order given by the Nigerian government to delete porn posts within 24 hours, SaharaReportors’ findings revealed.
On Monday, June 13, the Nigerian Government issued a code of practice for all online platforms operating in Nigeria including social media interactive platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and TikTok.
Muhammadu Buhari’s government ordered them to remove, disable or block access to any non-consensual content, which parades partial or full nudity, sexual acts, deep fake or revenge porn within 24 hours of user’s posting.
The order was contained in the recently released Code of Practice for Interactive Computer Service Platforms/Internet Intermediaries (online platforms).
According to the document, these online platforms have to “act expeditiously 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 targeted to harass, disrepute, or intimidate an individual.
“A platform must acknowledge the receipt of the complaint and take down the content within 24 hours.”
The Code of Practice also instructs these platforms to take down any unlawful content upon receiving a notice from a user, or an authorised government agency.
However, SaharaReporters’ investigations revealed that six days (144 hours) after this directive, porn content can still be accessed on both Twitter and Instagram by Nigerian users.
Many Twitter users in Nigeria still have posts that involve nudity.
Many of such posts were found to be subsisting despite the anti-porn post directive given by the Nigerian government.
Similarly, SaharaReporters’ findings showed that Nigerian users can still access porn content on Instagram also but the newspaper chose not to post the links in order not to encourage pornography.