What made social media attractive and kept people online in its humble beginnings – when Elon Musk was still a founder at Paypal and before Mark Zuckerberg became a billionaire – was that users came to the internet to find greener social pastures.
It was about chatting with strangers on Yahoo Messenger, reading blogs, opening Facebook accounts and following every single follow suggestion, including former and current schoolmates. Years later, it’s hardly the case. As the 21st century began to take shape in the last decade, a kind of ideological, cultural divide has set in, taking place in various interactions across social media platforms.
No social media embodies this watershed moment quite like Twitter. In 2021 for days, Twitter went into a frenzy after the highly celebrated author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie published her now-famous essay “It is Obscene: a true reflection in three parts.”
“In certain young people today,” Adichie writes, “I notice what I find increasingly troubling: a cold-blooded grasping, a hunger to take and take and take, but never give; a massive sense of entitlement; an inability to show gratitude; an ease with dishonesty and pretension and selfishness that is couched in the language of self-care; an expectation always to be helped and rewarded no matter whether deserving or not;”
“Language that is slick and sleek but with little emotional intelligence; an astonishing level of self-absorption; an unrealistic expectation of puritanism from others; an over-inflated sense of ability, or of talent where there is any at all; an inability to apologize, truly and fully, without justifications; a passionate performance of virtue that is well executed in the public space of Twitter but not in the intimate space of friendship.”
The excerpt led to a contested debate about the rise of censorship on the internet, which is more about announcing solidarities with dominant Twitter orthodoxies than it is about honest opinions and perspectives on the issues shaping the narrative.
As Nigerians went to the polls last month censorship was a big issue. On one side of the aisles were users who argued that the Nigerian state – the old guard in politics- had failed them, and people who supported them contributed to the discontent they felt living in Nigeria, even as Nigerians. On the other side was handwringing for those who stayed neutral during the political cycle or supported the old guard. And there were the others who couldn’t see past the cognitive dissonance before them.
After the tech founder Damilola Odunfuwa tweeted: “I cannot be ‘cool’ with anyone supporting APC and Sanwo Olu. That support is an endorsement of tribalism, violence, lazy leadership & corruption. Lines must be drawn,” a retort came from Ife Olarinde, who rose to fame as the founder of the Clubhouse community The Cool House.
“This intolerant behaviour from all sides is the reason why Lagos is burning right now. Please let’s do better. Making intolerant speech should not be something ppl actually say freely. This tweet reeks of hate and I know no one will call it out but I will,” she tweeted.
It set in motion a tidal wave of disagreement initially with her take. But by the next day, it had dovetailed into a campaign to get Twitter to suspend her account and for her to be “handled” by the UK home office.
“This is hateful and inciteful speech that has incited animosity and has degenerated. @ukhomeoffice needs to handle this. @IfeIfeolarinde speech. All she does is spread hate and invoke violence in Nigeria while living in the UK! This is simply wicked with wicked intentions,” the influencer Kiki Mordi tweeted.
No doubt, there is disagreement on the internet, and then there is something else. There is malice framed as disagreement. What followed were days of online exorcism, a kind of “baptism by fire” that occurred solely on Twitter.
“I felt bewildered,” Olarinde told Technext. “I’ve always believed in engaging in conversations respectfully. However, I was disappointed to find that many Nigerians on Twitter did not share this approach to discourse.
What I observed was that the Nigerian Twitter space seemed to be dominated by a few influential individuals, or ‘warlords,’ who dictated and shaped conversations according to their own biases”
For many of the users who took part in the call-out, there was a sense of deep astonishment that Olarinde could have dared to make such a “foul comment” from her remote island and must be culturally docile and aloof. But for months, Olarinde’s position has been alongside Odunfuwa’s as another take on the debate over how young Nigerians should move forward post the elections.
But when users block the accounts with more engagement favoured by algorithms that would have said what Olarinde had said, there is no way they would have known it was just another side of the debates they have invested their time in for weeks.
Over the years, debates on the internet have stopped being about disagreement, at least not good-faith arguments. They are more about agreements and standing in solidarity with a preferred take.
It outlines the echo chamber in which Twitter users operate, the failures of algorithms by social media companies promoting content with more engagement, the rise of groupthink in Nigerian cyberspace and an aggressive compulsion to announce solidarity with a cause or risk social ostracisation.
“Twitter can sometimes resemble a schoolyard where bullies target less popular or less powerful individuals,” Olarinde said.
Many ordeals could befall a fragile democracy like Nigeria when an echo-chamber culture, hyper-polarisation and an inability to see the view from the other side hijack public discourse. “In extreme cases, hyper-polarization can contribute to the radicalization of individuals, pushing them towards more extreme beliefs and actions that can be harmful to society,” Olarinde said.
What is clear from all the conversations about censorship on the internet is that a new swarm has arrived on the shores of Nigerian cyberspace. Its goal is to place a gag on loading voices.
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