The Federal Government of Nigeria in what may not come as a surprise on Friday, June 4, 2021, suspended the operations of the world’s largest microblogging platform, Twitter. This followed after the presidency raised what appears to be concerns that Twitter is meddling in the internal affairs of Nigeria as a sovereign nation.
Recall that, CEO of Twitter, Jack Dorsey donated cryptocurrency to the #EndSars movement in 2020.Following that period chieftains of the country’s ruling party called for the suspension of Twitter.
Also recall that the Senate has had back and forth discussion on regulating social media in Nigeria’s digital space.
However, on the part of the social media giant, the presidential tweet that led to this development violates Twitter’s policy.
Is this ban the end of Twitter in Nigeria? As much as we can guess, it’s a No!
There is no doubt that individuals have misused the microblogging platform to incite violence, however we can’t downplay Twitter’s effect on positively affecting the lives of its users.
In summary, the social media platform has become the major source of livelihood to organisations and individuals leveraging the medium.
Should these people now be deprived of their source of income? What about those who use Twitter to pass out time, should they be deprived of the psychological effect that ensues from such interaction? No!
Technology has made life easy in almost every ramification, including how to make social media more accessible in the wake of a national ban.
According to UberFacts, just hours after the Nigerian government suspended Twitter, the term VPN became the most searched item in Nigeria.
What is VPN?
VPN which is referred fully as Virtual Private Network provides users with online anonymity as it creates a private network culled from an open internet connection.
The network masks your internet protocol (IP) address such that your online activities are untraceable. Summarily, VPN provides encrypted services to offer privacy.
Your activities on the web, with Twitter inclusive means that your private details and browsing habits are exposed to prowling eyes.
Using encryption, VPN scrambles data sent through a Wi-Fi network. This encryption makes your data unreadable, with this, nobody can get to eavesdrop on your internet activity.
With VPN your entire web activity is kept anonymous. Asides this, VPN also hides the following:
Your browsing history
Your IP address and location
Your location for streaming
Your devices
If you are new to the world of VPN, here are some of the networks you can try to stay anonymous in the wake of Twitter’s ban in Nigeria.