Many who had thought the ban of the microblogging platform, Twitter, was a joke woke up on Saturday morning to realise the federal government had indeed blocked access to it.
Many experts had doubted the capacity of the government to enforce the purported ban as the platform was still active as of Friday night.
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The Minister of Information, Lai Mohammed had in a statement announced the indefinite suspension of Twitter, citing alleged use of the platform for activities that are capable of undermining Nigeria’s corporate existence.
The statement also noted that the federal government had directed the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) to immediately commence the process of licensing all over-the-top media service and social media operations in Nigeria.
The announcement came days after Twitter deleted President Muhammadu Buhari’s tweet, in which he made a reference to Nigeria’s civil war of 1967 and its implications, in reference to the ongoing confrontation between the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) and security agencies, which led to killings in the South-East.
While many are still riled about the ban of Twitter by the federal government, many Nigerians have switched to alternative ways of accessing the platform.
Here are the few options many have adopted to access Twitter in Nigeria despite the ban by the federal government:
- Virtual Private Network (VPN)
A virtual private network, or VPN, is an encrypted connection over the Internet from a device to a network.
The encrypted connection helps ensure that sensitive data is safely transmitted.
It prevents unauthorized people from eavesdropping on the traffic and allows the user to conduct work remotely.
VPN technology is widely used in corporate environments.
A VPN extends a corporate network through encrypted connections made over the Internet.
Because the traffic is encrypted between the device and the network, traffic remains private as it travels.
An employee can work outside the office and still securely connect to the corporate network. Even smartphones and tablets can connect through a VPN.
Since the ban, many Nigerians have downloaded this application to boycott the ban.
VPN allows them to use another country’s IP’s (Internet Protocol) address to access Twitter.
With VPN, it will look as though they are accessing Twitter from another country outside Nigeria where its access has been banned.
There are many VPNs on app stores which include: TurboVPN, ExpressVPN, Surfshark, Hotspot Shield, NordVPN, IPVanish and many more.
- Tor
Tor browser allows Nigerians to access Twitter despite the ban. It is a free and open-source software for enabling anonymous communication.
It directs Internet traffic through a free, worldwide, volunteer overlay network, consisting of more than seven thousand relays for concealing a user’s location and usage from anyone conducting network surveillance or traffic analysis.
Using Tor makes it more difficult to trace the Internet activity to the user. This includes “visits to Web sites, online posts, instant messages, and other communication forms”.
Tor’s intended use is to protect the personal privacy of its users, as well as their freedom and ability to conduct confidential communication by keeping their Internet activities unmonitored.
