Nigeria loses $243 million 51 days after Twitter ban

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By Ismail Auwal

The Nigerian Government has lost the sum $243 million for banning Twitter in June, says a San Fransico based company, Netblocks in a report.

According to Netblocks Cost of Shutdown Tools, which uses the classic Free Digital App GDP impact technique, Nigeria has lost at least $243 million in the past 51 days since the Twitter shutdown.

Despite this, Twitter on Thursday posted stronger-than-expected earnings for the second quarter thanks to growing advertising demand across all geographic regions and types of ad products.

The San Francisco-based company earned $65.6 million, or 8 cents per share, in the April-June quarter. That’s up from a loss of $1.38 billion, or $1.75 per share, a year earlier.

In Nigeria, Twitter recorded $1.19 billion in revenue in Q2 2021, against the $683.4 million Twitter reported for the corresponding period of Q2 2020.

The United Nations, foreign capitals from Washington to London and rights groups have all condemned the ban as a threat to freedom of expression.

Nigeria’s broadcast regulator took a step further, ordering television and radio channels to suspend their Twitter accounts and stop using the social media giant for news, branding its use as “unpatriotic.”

Even using a VPN to access the platform would lead to investigation and possible suspension of broadcast licenses.

For a young channel like News Central, expanding but still fighting for its place in the market, the Twitter ban is a setback.

“We largely depend on the referrals we get from Twitter to attract to our YouTube Channel, and to our channel on the satellite StarTimes,” Oladayo Martins, head of the digital for News Central told AFP.

“The last report shows a drop of 40 percent of our viewers in the past five days. We are a pan-African channel, but driven mostly by the Nigerian youth

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