A Critical Analysis Of The Impact Of Twitter’s Ban On Government’s Transparency And Accountability

A Critical Analysis Of The Impact Of Twitter’s Ban On Government’s Transparency And Accountability

Chapter One

Preface

Background of the study

translucency and responsibility are critical for the effective functioning of a ultramodern republic and for fostering social well- being. In utmost societies, numerous powers are delegated to public authorities. Some assurance must also be handed to the delegators, that is, society at large, that this transfer of power isn’t only effective, but also not abused. translucency ensures that information is available that can be used to measure the authorities’ performance and to guard against any possible abuse of powers. In that sense, translucency serves to achieve responsibility, which means that authorities can be held responsible for their conduct. Without translucency and responsibility, trust will be lacking between a government and those whom it governs. The result would be social insecurity and an terrain that’s lower than conducive to profitable growth.

translucency can be understood as a compound construct involving multiple factors, similar as external availability and active exposure. It has been defined in different ways, but utmost of the delineations see visibility as abecedarian. A good working description of translucency can be expanded to include absoluteness, understanding, or inferability of information, but it basically begins with” the vacuity of information about an actor that allows the other actors to cover the workings or performance of the first actor.” Governments can promote translucency by laboriously telling information about their conditioning and opinions and also enabling citizens to pierce, cover, and estimate it. From the citizen’s point of view, government translucency is perceived when government information is intimately available. still, indeed if information is available, citizens won’t perceive government translucency until they’re effectively informed of government conditioning and opinions( Zavattaro,S.M., & Sementelli,A.J. 2015).

Nigeria’s government is one of those that uses social media platforms similar as Twitter, Facebook, and other social networking spots to inform citizens about their programs andprograms.There has lately been a lot of query in their citizens’ minds regarding the ban on one of the popular social networking spots,Twitter.Twitter is an American microblogging and social networking service on which druggies post and interact with dispatches known as” tweets”. Registered druggies can post, like, andre-tweet tweets, but unrecorded druggies can only read them. druggies pierce Twitter through its website interface or its mobile- device operation software. therefore, in the absence of timely information, similar as participated on these social networking spots, citizens may be pushed to lose faith in the translucency of the government and this always sends a communication that the government isn’t responsible to the citizens, which is depreciatory to true popular principles.

Statement of the problem

On 4th June 2021, the Nigerian government officially put an indefinite ban on Twitter, confining it from operating in Nigeria, after the social media platform deleted tweets made by the Nigerian President, Muhammadu Buhari, advising the south- eastern people of Nigeria, generally enthralled by the Igbo people, of a implicit reprise of the 1967 Biafran Civil War( CNN 2021). The Nigerian government claimed that the omission of the President’s tweets regard into their decision, but it was eventually grounded on” a litany of problems with the social media platform in Nigeria, where misinformation and fake news spread through it has had real- world, violent consequences”.

Although Amnesty International, the British and Canadian operations, and the Swedish Embassy in Nigeria, as well as domestic associations similar as the Socio- Economic Rights and Responsibility design( SERAP), have all condemned the ban, its counteraccusations are likely to have a significant negative impact on the profitability of Nigerian telecommunications companies.

According to the Social- Media- Poll- Report( 2020), further than 120 million Nigerians have access to the internet and social networking spots and nearly 40 million of them have a Twitter account — 20 of the population. therefore, the barring of Twitter in Nigeria always means that one of the numerous social media platforms through which citizens are informed about government programs and programs has been dammed, transferring a lot of dispatches to the millions about the Buhari- led administration’s position of translucency and responsibility. thus, it’s upon this premise that this study is set to examine the impact of the Twitter ban on government translucency and responsibility.

Objects Of The Study

The main focus of this study is to examine the Twitter ban’s effect on government translucency. The study specifically seeks to

1. probe the significance of social media for government translucency.

2. To examine the extent of government translucency through the Twitter platform before the ban.

3. To determine whether the current Twitter ban will have an impact on citizens’ comprehensions of the government’s translucency and responsibility.

Exploration Thesis

The exploration is guided by the following thesis.

HO1 Nigeria’s Twitter ban won’t have a negative impact on citizens’ comprehensions of government translucency.

HO2 There’s no significant relationship between the Twitter ban and government responsibility.

Significance of the study

Because this study depicts a critical analysis of the effect of the Twitter ban on government translucency and responsibility, it’s critical to note that the findings and theoretical aspects of this work will be applicable to citizens, political stakeholders, and thegovernment.To the stakeholders and the government, the study will enlighten them on the need to reassess the current ban on Twitter, knowing how this will affect the perception of its citizens on the position of their translucency and responsibility, as the effect of this may peril the true tenet of republic. More so, the study will also be significantly useful to scholars and experimenters and other individualities who may have the interest to gather or accomplish any study related to the content under study.

Compass Of The Study

The compass of this study extends to a critical examination of the impact of Twitter’s ban on government translucency and responsibility. The study is thus limited to Twitter druggies in Lagos State.

Limitations of the study

During the course of this exploration, the following factors are proposed to be a limitation.

fiscal constraint – shy backing tends to stymie the experimenter’s effectiveness in locating applicable accoutrements , literature, or information, as well as in the data collection process( internet, questionnaire, and interview).

Time constraint – The experimenter will contemporaneously engage in this study with other academic work. As a result, the quantum of time spent on exploration is reduced.

Description Of Terms

Twitter Twitter is an Americanmicro-blogging and social networking service on which druggies post and interact with dispatches known as” tweets”. Registered druggies can post, like, and retweet tweets, but unrecorded druggies can only read them.

Twitter Ban This is the authoritative pause in the operation of Twitter as commanded by the Civil government of Nigeria on June 5th 2021 until the possessors of the social network meet the recently established conditions given to them by the government of Nigeria.

translucency translucency, as used in wisdom, engineering, business, the humanities and in other social surrounds, operates in such a way that it’s easy for others to see what conduct are performed.

Responsibility Responsibility, in terms of ethics and governance, is equated with responsibility, denunciation, liability, and the anticipation of account- giving.