ABUJA: Nigeria asked Google to block the use of YouTube channels and livestreams by banned groups and terrorist organizations in the country, Information Minister Lai Mohammed said on Thursday.
Nigeria has been exploring ways to regulate social media usage in the country, Africa’s most populous. The country is home to millions of Internet users and platforms like YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and Tiktok are popular. YouTube “channels and emails containing names of banned groups and their affiliates should not be allowed on Google platforms,” Mohammed said he told Google executives in Abuja, the country’s capital.
Charles Murito, Google’s sub-Saharan African director for government affairs and public policy, in a statement said the company already has measures to address the Nigerian government’s concerns.
Those measures include a system for trained users to flag troublesome content, he added. “We share the same goals and objectives,” Murito said. “We do not want our platform to be used for ill purposes.”
The minister said the government was particularly concerned with online activities by the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB). The government has labeled IPOB, a group campaigning for the secession of a southeastern region of Nigeria, a “terrorist organization.”
The YouTube concerns are part of an effort by the government, the minister said, to protect Nigerian Internet users from harmful effects of social media, especially ahead of a presidential election next year.
Nigeria suspended Twitter in June 2021 and blocked access to users after the social media giant removed a post from President Muhammadu Buhari threatening to punish regional secessionists.
The government lifted the Twitter ban six months later.
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Nigeria asks Google to block banned groups from YouTube
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Nigeria asks Google to block banned groups from YouTube
- Google said it already has measures to address the Nigerian government’s concerns including a system for trained users to flag troublesome content
Foreign press group welcomes Israel court deadline on Gaza access
- Supreme Court set deadline for responding to petition to Jan. 4
- Since the start of the Gaza war in October 2023, Israeli authorities have prevented foreign journalists from independently entering the Strip
JERUSALEM: The Foreign Press Association in Jerusalem on Sunday welcomed the Israeli Supreme Court’s decision to set January 4 as the deadline for Israel to respond to its petition seeking media access to Gaza.
Since the start of the Gaza war in October 2023, sparked by Palestinian militant group Hamas’s attack on Israel, Israeli authorities have prevented foreign journalists from independently entering the devastated territory.
Israel has instead allowed, on a case-by-case basis, a handful of reporters to accompany its troops into the blockaded Palestinian territory.
The Foreign Press Association (FPA), which represents hundreds of foreign journalists in Israel and the Palestinian territories, filed a petition to the supreme court last year, seeking immediate access for international journalists to the Gaza Strip.
On October 23, the court held a first hearing on the case, and decided to give Israeli authorities one month to develop a plan for granting access.
Since then the court has given several extensions to the Israeli authorities to come up with their plan, but on Saturday it set January 4 as a final deadline.
“If the respondents (Israeli authorities) do not inform us of their position by that date, a decision on the request for a conditional order will be made on the basis of the material in the case file,” the court said.
The FPA welcomed the court’s latest directive.
“After two years of the state’s delay tactics, we are pleased that the court’s patience has finally run out,” the association said in a statement.
“We renew our call for the state of Israel to immediately grant journalists free and unfettered access to the Gaza Strip.
“And should the government continue to obstruct press freedoms, we hope that the supreme court will recognize and uphold those freedoms,” it added.
An AFP journalist sits on the board of the FPA.
Since the start of the Gaza war in October 2023, sparked by Palestinian militant group Hamas’s attack on Israel, Israeli authorities have prevented foreign journalists from independently entering the devastated territory.
Israel has instead allowed, on a case-by-case basis, a handful of reporters to accompany its troops into the blockaded Palestinian territory.
The Foreign Press Association (FPA), which represents hundreds of foreign journalists in Israel and the Palestinian territories, filed a petition to the supreme court last year, seeking immediate access for international journalists to the Gaza Strip.
On October 23, the court held a first hearing on the case, and decided to give Israeli authorities one month to develop a plan for granting access.
Since then the court has given several extensions to the Israeli authorities to come up with their plan, but on Saturday it set January 4 as a final deadline.
“If the respondents (Israeli authorities) do not inform us of their position by that date, a decision on the request for a conditional order will be made on the basis of the material in the case file,” the court said.
The FPA welcomed the court’s latest directive.
“After two years of the state’s delay tactics, we are pleased that the court’s patience has finally run out,” the association said in a statement.
“We renew our call for the state of Israel to immediately grant journalists free and unfettered access to the Gaza Strip.
“And should the government continue to obstruct press freedoms, we hope that the supreme court will recognize and uphold those freedoms,” it added.
An AFP journalist sits on the board of the FPA.
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