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Democracy, digital censorship, and Nigeria’s social media bill 2019: a critical evaluation Introduction The mass media architecture in Nigeria has historically been regarded by the country’s elite class as a threat to government, and laws and decrees have often been devised by successive administrations to muffle journalists and arm-twist media content producers. This negative perception has not been entirely unjustifiable as the media have sometimes played unceremonious roles which were perilous to the nations fledgling democracy. This paper evaluates the latest of such government attempts to control media use with the introduction of the 2019 social media use bill which proposes the curtailment of digital media access and use in the country. Weighed against the 3-point scale of social media effect, the paper contends that since media messages impact differently, the consequence of social media use by citizens will often reflect a contextual effect. The spread of counterdiscourses, sometimes characterised as “hate speech”, would oftentimes be based on a motivation usually arising from the inadequacies of state actors. Media and Democracy in Nigeria: an overviewNigeria returned to democratic governance in 1999 following over 15 years of multiple military interferencess which began with the truncation of the nation’s Second Republic in 1983. It operates an American-styled federal system featuring the three arms of government with the legislature being bicameral. However, what today is accepted by many as Africa’s largest democracy has been contested by some scholars who are of the opinion that government in Nigeria has not transitioned fully to democracy but is a fitting example of pseudo democracy or a hybrid regime (Diamond 2002; Menocal et al. 2008; Morlino 2008; and Ejumudo 2011). Years of military experience is believed to have overarching influence on institutions of democracy in the nation (LeVan 2014).Notably, the country’s struggle to bring its democracy out of the shadows of militarism (Obi 2007) has not been without the robust input of its media. As the media are signposts for representative governance, the role of the media in democratization in Nigeria has been complex and interwoven (Hyden and Okigbo 2002). While the media have always contributed to the struggle for good governance in the country, the relationship between them and government have historically been defined by prevailing political situations before and after the country’s independence. While the pre-independent Nigerian press had nationalistic and revolutionary agendas, a commitment which became significant to the country’s emergence from the trenches of colonialism, the post-independent press were noted for their regionalist and ethnic variations (Okafor and Malizu 2013). They later became institutions hounded by the same government which political freedom it championed (Udoakah 2014). The relationship between the media and government became even worse under successive military regimes which started to surface 6 years into independence. The regimes promulgated multiple obnoxious decrees such as General Gowon’s decree 17 of 1967 “which gave the Head of the military government power to prohibit the circulation of any newspaper it felt was detrimental to the interests of the Federation or of any State” (Seng 1986, p.90), and decree 4 of 1984 by General Muhammadu Buhari (now president) which jailed journalists “deemed to be acting in a manner detrimental to the interest of the Government” (May 1984).Nigeria’s media like others in Africa, were key non-state actors which midwifed tectonic political and economic transitions in the country as soon as they began to gain some independence from government (Blankson 2007). For instance, media decentralisation, privatisation and the proliferation of the new media became catalysts for Africa’s ultimate break into the global free market and its growing embracement of democracy. Even more, after the Nigerian government became less obstructive to broadcasting through the deregulation of the broadcast sector in Nigeria in 1992, political participation by marginalised groups increased (Njoku 2019), likewise access to balanced political information (Ariye 2010), etc. Strangely, these many positives have not translated, at least, to basic media freedom and freedom of information in the nation (Udoakah 2014). Pate and Dauda (2019) found that there is still no media freedom in Nigeria and that journalists continue to face threat to life. What the present situation suggests is that the transition to democracy may have had little impact on the country’s media experience as government continue to either repress the press through legislations or adopt more crude ways such as obstruction of print circulation (Reporters Without Boarders 2019).Examining the role of the media in political and democratic transitions, Rozumilowicz (2002) argues in favour of the media-supremist hypothesis, holding that free and independent media are necessary for the production and functioning of democracy. Going by this position, it may be safe to conclude that the deficit in terms of media freedom in Nigeria could be one of the reasons the country’s democracy continues to take on a form as a hybrid regime or pseudo democracy rather than full democracy. This is justifiably so since only a free media structure can better “maintain and support the competitive and participative elements that define democracy and the related process of democratization” (Rozumilowicz 2002, P.12)But to determine the relationship between democracy and press freedom, it must be taken into consideration that press freedom is negatively related to corruption; for instance, journalists demanding incentives to investigate a wrongdoing as is prevalent in a place like Nigeria. The problem of worsening ethics and ethno-religious bias in reporting, heavy political and ownership influence and clear-cut corruption still exists (Santas and Ogoshi 2016). More than 75% of journalists sampled by Adeyemi (2013) engaged in corrupt practices and more than half of their employers were indifferent with this level of corruption. Although the country now has a Freedom of Information law for which media practitioners have been clamouring for many years, how this will impact on media practice in terms of ethics and access remains to be seen. What is however clear is the opportunity in terms of freedom brought by the social media and their perceived threat to democratisation.Social Media and Democratization: potentials and threats in NigeriaInternet and digital media platforms have effectively broadened global communication space while at the same time shrinking the world to a global village as envisioned by Marshal McLuhan (Knippa 2016). The media spaces in many democracies have continued to feel the disruptive impact of these media. If the impact of online social media communication on democracy was ever in doubt, this doubt became cleared at the wake of ‘Arab Spring’ in 2011. The uprising was an indication that where physical spaces could not be accessed because they were controlled by state power, digital media could emerge as ‘subaltern counterpublics’ (Lim, 2014). In his influential essay, Rethinking the Public Sphere: A Contribution to the Critique of Actually Existing Democracy, Fraser (1992) proposes subaltern counterpublics as “parallel discursive arenas where members of subordinated social groups invent and circulate counterdiscourses...” (Fraser 1990, p.67). Today, as Lim (2014) has noted, social media platforms have become those parallel discursive communities in places like Nigeria, a country with a proven history of a hindered media freedom characterised by series of repressive media laws (Akpojivi 2013). Nigeria has 122 million internet users (NCC 2019). This explains the huge presence of the country on social media, with a third of all of Nigeria’s over 201 million people using Facebook alone (Oberh?user 2019). This mass online presence has proven to benefit Nigeria’s democratisation process; it has also been a source of worry for government.Since the very principle of democratisation consists of a more rule-based and participatory kind of politics resulting from a transition that leads to full democratic rule (Schultziner 2010), it may be right in some sense to see social media as agents for the consolidation of Nigeria’s democracy given its participatory nature. This is particularly so as social media has been deployed in the country as a medium to engender public democratic debates, influence policies and laws and used to push social agenda in Nigeria in the last decade, such as the #BringBackOurGirls movement in 2014 and #OccupyNigeria in 2012 (Olukola et al. 2019). #BringBackOurGirls for instance did not only set agenda for the mainstream media (Olsen 2016), political observers believe it led to Goodluck Jonathan’s loss at the April 2015 presidential polls, the first time a sitting president would fail to win re-election in the country (Siollun 2015). It is also contended by some analysts that the utilisation of social media in that election minimised the famous rigging strategy of politicians (Suntai and Targema 2017).With over 45% of Nigerians living below the extreme poverty threshold of $1.95 per day (World Data Lab 2019), social media becomes a cost-effective instrument for participatory governance and for deepening democratic ideals in the country (Ajayi and Adesote 2015). Other benefits of social media in Nigeria have been enumerated to include “monitoring and evaluation of electioneering processes,... ensuring and even enforcing transparency and accountability...” (Ajayi and Adesote 2015, p.47). However, these impacts have not also been without attendant threats, key among which is the spread of hate speech online.There is a consensus that while the social media have helped in creating political awareness and participation, they have been instrumental in the spread of pernicious propaganda and hate which may have negatively impacted democratisation in Nigeria (Ukweze and Uche 2015; Emetumah 2016; Suntai and Targema 2017; Pate and Ibrahim 2018; Olukola et al 2019). Pate and Ibrahim (2018) believe hate speech, which they define as inciting comments made to create and spread hate, has “significantly increased because of the explosion of social media” (p.92). Some believe the situation is frustrating the task of democratic consolidation in a country grappling with the herculean challenge of building unity in diversity (Suntai and Targema 2017). The real debate among Nigerians is however not whether the social media threatens Nigeria’s democracy, a democracy with which 60% of the populace are unhappy with (PEW 2018). Rather, the debate and concern has grown around government’s response to the perceived threats.Between the Social Media Bill 2019 and digital censorshipOn November 5, 2019, the Nigerian Senate held the first reading of a bill titled Protection from Internet Falsehoods and Manipulations and Other Related Matters Bill 2019. The bill is commonly known as the Social Media Bill 2019 among Nigerians. A similar bill, the Frivolous Petitions Prohibition Bill, was halted in 2016 after the public protested some part of the proposed law. But after that experience, legislations were proposed in either the House of Representatives or the Senate which had related proposals as the 2016 bill. Most of these were reportedly quietly proposed and are at various legislative stages. But a wide public outcry returned in November 2019 after the Social Media Bill 2019 was stealthily presented and read the second time on the floor of the senate. This bill had earlier carried a death penalty which was removed on November 12, 2019, after it was met with strong public condemnation (Enwang 2019). Among others, the proposed law prohibits statements on social media which can “diminish public confidence in the performance...by government”, an act which would attract a fine of 300,000 Naira or a jail term of 3 years or both. Offline and online, Nigerians moved against the proposal using hashtags such as #SayNoToSocialMediaBill, with right activists calling for a halt of the bill.General Muhammadu Buhari, the country’s head, had in his 2019 Independence Day speech said that his regime was ready to carry out “firm and decisive action” against "the abuse of technology through hate speech and other divisive material being propagated on social media”. This comment was widely perceived as ominous. In their editorial, Business Day, one of the country’s leading dailies, said the remark by Buhari was by every intent and purposes a threat to free speech (Business Day 2019). At the heels of the Buhari’s remarks were two bills, the Prohibition of Hate Speeches and the Social Media bills, further fuelling the suspicion that the administration was committed to gagging the press. Earlier in the year, General Buhari had refused to sign into law the Digital Rights and Freedom Bill which sought the protection of Nigerian’s rights on digital platforms (Techpoint Africa 2019).The reintroduction of the social media bill and other ongoing legislations regarding the law have pointed to attempt at digital censorship in a country where media workers and critical voices are government targets (Human Rights Watch, 2019).While researchers like Stoycheff et al. (2018) associate digital/online censorship with content blocking, surveillance, or the suppression of media and communication technologies by government, Howard et al. (2011) broaden the scope of digital censorship to include a level of severity such as:“online, by shutting down political websites or portals; offline, by arresting journalists, bloggers, activists, and citizens; by proxy, through controlling ISPs, forcing companies to shut down specific websites or denying access to disagreeable content; and, in the most extreme cases, shutting down access to entire online and mobile networks” (p.224)Although Africa’s mainstream media have historically been hounded by their government’s libel and seditious laws in ways which contradict democratic governance (Blankson 2008), digital censorship still seems new. Though there is still a huge reliance on legislations to checkmate the media as seen in “countries such as Zambia, Cote d’Ivoire, Cameroon, Namibia and Swaziland which have laws that make it office for the media to insult political leaders” (Blankson 2007, p.24), a special report by Wilhelm (2018) for Deutsche Welle revealed that government agencies in countries like Mali, Rwanda, Uganda, and Cameroon were routinely censoring certain online contents. According to the report, Uganda government for instance has a social media tax which makes platforms like Twitter and Facebook available only to individuals who can pay equivalent of 50cents daily. Human Rights Watch has warned that the proposed legislation in Nigeria will criminalise criticism of government, a central component of democratisation.Social media in democracy: the contextual effect perspectiveBy its provision, the Social Media Bill 2019 seeks to incriminate social media contents deemed by government to threaten security, democracy and Nigeria’s image abroad. But what seems to be left unaddressed is the question of whether there has been any significant spread of hate in the country through the social media, one which threatened democracy. The extent to which this level of control is expedient must in the first place be determined against the 3-point scale of social media effect on democracy and democratisation viz. revolutionary effect, minimal effect, and contextual effect. Is the effect of social media activities in Nigeria taking an anti-democratic revolutionary dimension which must be checkmated by government immediately in order to “safeguard and consolidate Nigeria’s fledgling democracy” (Ajayi and Adesote 2015, p.56)? Or are we in the new era of minimal effect where mere exposure to media contents (including social media contents) cannot exclusively change beliefs or attitude (Bennett and Iyengar 2008) and as such should not attract perceivably extreme laws like the Social Media Bill 2019? Or are direct media effects too difficult to establish and the evidence too little to rely upon so that contextual effect has to be considered? In the light of this third hypothesis, Livingstone (2005) argues that “instead of assuming that all members of the audience are influenced by media messages in the same way, we need an approach which assumes that... the consequences of media ‘exposure’… depend on the social context” (p.10). Contextual effect here, according to Livingstone, would mean that message decoding by audiences “diverge depending on viewers’ socio-economic position, gender, ethnicity, and so forth,” (p.15). She says for a heterogeneous audience like Nigeria’s over 30million social network users (Statista 2019), media messages they are exposed to will impact differently depending on social contexts. She indicates that effect through social media contents become even more so contextual considering the peer-to-peer or one-to-one nature of online communication compared to mainstream media’s mass communication.Livingstone’s model of media effect, seen through the lens of the Nigerian situation, takes us back to the very cogent question of whether the social media, apart from serving as channels for building social capital and political participation (Skoric et al. 2015), can singularly, if at all, be blamed for the spread of falsehood as claimed by the government. Rather than manacle the social media, perhaps what should be reflected upon should be the context of Nigeria’s democracy, a democracy with which the people are unhappy with. In a case study of the Arab Spring, Wolfsfeld et al. (2013) found that the impact of social media in collective action was strongly dependent on the political environment in which they operate. Motivation was an important factor for mass action arising from social media. They argued that citizens who were happier with their democracy were less likely to be motivated to engage on the social media in ways that were detrimental to their government compared to those who were not.ConclusionIs the solution in censoring the social media where the impact of social media is clearly contextual? While the bigger concern about social media abuse for advanced democracies like the United Kingdom has to do with sexually oriented contents directed at minors and contents which incite racism or terrorism (Yar 2018), younger and less stable democracies like Nigeria claim to be more worried about threat to democratisation. Incidentally, the countries which often worry about social media’s negative effect on their ‘democracy’ often have something in common – they operate either fully oppressive regimes or have pseudo-democracies. For such societies, there will be a high motivation for citizens to manipulate the social media against their government (Wolsfeld et al. 2013) Social Media Bill 2019 claims to seek the protection of Nigeria’s democracy, even though there are no clear evidence that the country’s social media world is currently a threat weighty enough to warrant weighty censorship. But as some of the principles examined in this paper suggest, the fear of a potential setback on the democratisation process arising from social media use may well be based on speculation. The bill seems to arise from a desire to muffle voices and put government in control of the subalten counterpublics so that counterdiscourses are forbidden from taking root. This too is somewhat a speculative position. Without prejudice to the challenge of limited data in places like Nigeria, it behoves researchers in the country to provide empirical evidences that would reveal the real impact of social media in the country and if this level of effect warrants a censorship law. Speculation requires empirical investigation rather than a priori assumptions about audiences (Livingstone 2005).As a solution, Howard et al. 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