The Nigerian government restored access to the social media site on Thursday after a seven-month suspension that was imposed after the site deleted a post by the president.
The government blocked access to the site in June, but reversed course on Wednesday after agreeing to several demands. A government official said that a representative will be appointed, taxes will be paid, and an office will be established in the country.
Since the ban came into effect, the service has only been accessible via a virtual private network. The removal of a post by the President was seen as having prompted the government to block the site, but the official said on Wednesday that it was because it had been used for criminal activities.
The message that was widely read as a reference to the Nigerian civil war was in the now- deleted message. Some thought it was a threat of genocide.
Nigerian lawmakers have introduced several bills in the last few years that would regulate social media on the grounds of security or national unity. Rights groups say the measures could violate international laws protecting freedom of speech.
The human rights group said on Wednesday night that the ban was illegal and that it was an attack on basic freedoms in Nigeria.
The government and the telecommunications companies were sued over the ban.
It was good to hear that the service had been restored.
The post said that their mission in Nigeria and around the world was to serve the public conversation. Nigeria is a place where people use the social networking site for commerce, cultural engagement, and civic participation.
It is thought that there are three million users in Nigeria, but it is not the most popular social media platform.
In 2020 it was used to organize the biggest anti-government uprising in a generation, staged by young people against police brutality.
NetBlocks developed a tool to calculate the economic effect of internet disruptions, mobile data blackouts or app restrictions, and it shows that the ban may have cost Nigeria's economy more than $1 billion. Many Nigerian businesses have lost revenue because of their use of social media.
The executive director of Enough is Enough Nigeria said that there were profound societal consequences beyond the economic consequences.
She said that the Nigeria Center for Disease Control was using social media to spread information. It was a good source of information for Nigerian people. During the ban, the organization's account was not active. A breakdown of cases by state was the last one it sent.
Many people in Nigeria did not know that the organization spread information through Facebook.
The impact of the Delta variant was not fully understood by a lot of people.
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