Social media are computer-mediated technologies that facilitate the creation and sharing of information, ideas, career interests and and other forms of expression through virtual communities and network ( wikipedia 2018). This means, a social media is an online communication channels dedicated to interaction. The social media is Nigeria's main source of information and has become so popular as it is virtually synonymous with the internet.
Some of the most popular social media websites are Baidu Teiba, Facebook(Facebook messenger), Gab, Google+, MySpace, Instagram, Linkedln, Pinterest, Tumbir, Twitter, Viber, VK, Wechat, Weibo, WhatsApp, Wikia, Snapchat, YouTube and so on. The most popular of the social media is Facebook, a brain child of Mark Zuckerberg with over two billion active users worldwide.
As internet use in Nigeria has increased in the last couple of years, so has the use and popularity of Facebook platform. Facebook remains a premium choice for Nigerians as 22 million subscribers in Nigeria visit the platform every month. The Facebook Public Policy Director, Ebele Okobi, during the launch of its Nigerian initiative to reinforce its commitment and investment made it clear that 87% of small and medium enterprises in Nigeria also utilises Facebook for digital skills and more.
According to her, Facebook mission was to give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together. And this demonstrates that the power of digital skills to aid economic growth and development has never been more important. Everyone needs to collaborate to actualise a closer community. No wonder, world leaders decided to take advantage of this as Donald Trump and Narendra Modi, India prime minister are the most engaged world leaders on Facebook.
When Facebook came to Nigeria, many hope it would helped to usher in a new period of free speech by amplifying voices that countered the narrative of the government-friendly traditional press. Facebook has a way of getting out your message that would be foolish to ignore even when this generation does not have enough passion to watching television and to buy newspaper.
The government is using this platform to promote its message while jailing or detaining its critics and doing its best to exploit Facebook own rules to shot down criticism through a direct relationship with the Facebook staff. This platform has styled itself as a neutral platform for information but its role in being a purveyor of propaganda and fake news as well as its relationship with the government shows how easily that neutrality can be exploited by autocrats. For instance, governments have click farms where users buy likes and this is prohibited on the Facebook terms. This is a mechanism that has created a chilling effect that critics of the government is only getting worse.
People want a big room for themselves to speak but if you let things go freely, it will result to anarchy. Freedom has limits hence the need for the rule of law. Facebook rules are not democratic enough. Fake names violate Facebook terms of service, but in practice the rule is not enforced consistently in part because the company relies on people proactively bringing such incident to its attention.
Clare wareing, a spokesperson for Facebook opines that the company removes credible threats, hate speech, and impersonation profiles when they are made aware. This means when a subscriber finds a post objectionable, they click a link on the post to report it. Then a Facebook judge decides whether it violates the platform rules and should be taken down. In practice, its a chunky process that involves no direct communication or chance or appeal, and the decision made by Facebook can be mysterious and arbitrary.
In view of this, there is a sweeping reform to this platform that would prioritise personal post that friends share, or react to and sideline content by official pages. This move will decrease the organic reach of official pages by 50% to 80%. This decision sparked an outcry in Cambodia, Bolivia, Serbia, Guatemala, and Sri Lanka. Phil Robertson of Human Right Watch accused Facebook of using developing countries as guinea pigs in an experiment. The siloing off of content as an experiment is seen as monetising the war for users attention.
This piece advises Facebook to put up stronger team made up of technical people as well as those who understand politics, governments policies and public opinion where successes are replicated and failures are interrogated.
Media executives have countered these changes to the News feed that it amplifies fake news by making it harder to find information from independent, trust worthy news sources.
Facebook now appears to be running away from its role as a news source amid lingering questions about its handling of rumours and fake news that have affected the election around the world. It is obvious Facebook will not be playing the role in next year national election that it did in 2015.


EIMOGA. C, AUDU.
eimoga24@gmail.com

Moderator, please kindly move this to the front page as this Facebook sweeping change will soon hit the Nigerians.

duscollins:
Moderator, please kindly move this to the front page as this Facebook sweeping change will soon hit the Nigerians.

lol