In your personal opinion, was it a right thing that Twitter deleted the tweet and suspended the account of Nigeria's president? Why or why not?
Just because we can do something, "we feel entitled to doing it," is a statement made by John Green in his second video on globalization. I find that statement very relevant to Twitter's expansion into Nigeria. When entering a foreign market, a specific risk is the misalignment of values and cultural norms between nations. When Twitter decides to enter foreign markets, which is relatively easy, they most likely do so without considering "should they enter." Being a publicly traded company, Twitter must pursue profits as it is in the shareholder's best interest. However, where does that leave Nigerians who aren't invested in Twitter?
I think we have a tech company that can access foreign markets much easier than brick-and-mortar companies, growing before they set appropriate standards for operating in a foreign environment. But I am outside of their organization. And I do not know how heavily vetted their decision to remove that tweet was- maybe much thought was put into the decision. And maybe it is ultimately okay for Twitter to impose Americanized standards on other nations. That is another effect of globalization, after all.
At surface level, as an American, it seems as if the tweet should have been removed from their platform. But that's from my non-native perspective. And because I do not understand the cultural norms of Nigeria, I do not have an opinion on this issue.
Twitter took similar actions toward the former U.S. President Mr. Donald Trump's twitter account. What was the consequence of suspending the account of the U.S. president? Why did these two similar incidents lead to very different results?
The consequence of suspending the account of the acting U.S. president is the unrest of their following. At a bare minimum, you can expect individuals who support the banned president to boycott and leave the Twitter platform. As we saw in this particular scenario, retaliatory violence was a genuine concern for those working at the organization. A subset of the population felt so emotionally hurt by the decision that employees and leadership feared that physical retaliation was in the realm of possibilities. And the lasting, more precedent-setting consequence is "what free speech will be allowed on the platform now?" "How many breaches of terms of service before other Twitter accounts are permanently banned?" Making this decision set Twitter up for a future where it seems ambiguous as to how much is too much free speech and how many free passes will be given to violators of T.O.S.
As crass as this sounds, I believe these two incidents lead to very different results due to perceived importance. Donald Trump had 88M followers compared to President Muhammadu's 4M. Trump was the president of the free world and was eliciting a violent takeover of democracy in the organization's home country. Again, this is crass, but I imagine that Twitter is more concerned with its own backyard politics than those of other nations. Finally, and not to be overlooked, Twitter has a reputation for being a left-leaning organization- Trump is a republican. Perhaps Twitter used this as an opportunity to silence who they perceived as a destructive figure.